Emotiva Preamp Any good?

The XMC is over FOUR years late. They tried EmoQ and TacT before Dirac, if that says anything about the situation. They announced that Dirac was finally ready to ship shortly after Minidsp announced the release of a competing Dirac product.

Because it's 4 years late, the platform is sadly lacking. The new Marantz 7702 is much better at the same price. Dolby Atmos and Audyssey XT32. 11.2 channels of processing instead of 7.2, with 13.2 preouts. Video processing, the XMC has none. Wifi and blutooth built in. The list goes on and on.

The Pioneer model is 8 or 9 years old and would be bested by any current mid level AVR. Any processor will kick it to the curb as well, including the XMC. As i mentioned earlier, the XMC is dated and missing features now common on AVRs. I got a Denon 4520 for half off and the SQ upgrade over my 5 yr old Onkyo is stunning. I just checked Accessories4less and it's now over over 200 less than I paid, a crazy good price.

It can drive an amp should you want one. Anyone out there, if you're looking at a new AVR, get this Denon. The price is amazing and the feature set is top of the line. The only thing it lacks is Atmos, which is why it's on clearance. I've had it for 2 months now, and in my 25 x 14' room with 7.1, the sound performance is the best I've ever had. It actually bests my high end 2 channel system in some cases, but Audyssey will do that.

Oops, just a little correction. The current best price is for a reconditioned 4520, over 200 less($888) than I paid them for a brand new one of which they still have stock.