Anyone have any in depth info on these two new amps from
Emotiva? At first glance they look very promising,...price, specs, etc.,....very tempting. I don't know a lot about amps, so maybe I'm wrong. Any expert opinions out there? My power hungry RBH speakers have been begging for more power ever since I got them.
I'm not an expert, but I do have the XPA-5.
I was using a Denon AVR-987 to drive some PSB Image T55s, C60 and S50s. A SVS PC Ultra13 and a bunch of GIK bass traps and acoustic panels help shape the sound. Sources are an OPPO 980, PS3, Toshiba HD-A1 and a DirecTV HD DVR. Basically a mid-fi setup.
I have plans to go out later this year and audition new speakers so I've been "practicing" my listening for the past couple months. I even went out and purchased a couple of Chesky recordings as I read that they are recorded to very high standards.
I'm using the Denon as my Pre/Pro and for music, I take the SVS out of the system. Listening to the Chesky recordings with the XPA-5 was where I really heard a big difference in sound. The overused "I heard things that I never heard before" statement does apply here. I had to get up a few times just to confirm that the SVS hadn't kicked on since the bass was fantastic. The mids and highs just shined compared to just the Denon. The soundstage didn't seem wider, just more defined. It didn't move forwards or backwards compared to just the Denon. Now the bad news. The recordings that I listened to that were not recorded as well as the Chesky's sounded even worse. The dynamic compression really comes through.
For movies and TV, the difference between just the Denon and the Denon XPA-5 combo was smaller. The SVS is now in the equation and doing that must have really taken a load off the Denon amps. The one thing that did stand out was the dialog. It was much cleaner and clearer.
As I said before, I've been practicing to audition speakers, so throughout the time I had my RS meter sitting by my side to make sure that I wasn't hearing things because of a difference in levels. I keep my sound level averaging around 75db. (Much lower when watching TV) I have 30 days to eval this amp and I wasn't going to keep it if it really didn't make a difference in what I was hearing out of the Denon.
In short, if you are just using an AVR to drive your system, the XPA-5 will make a real difference in the sound you are hearing. I'm keeping mine.
