Emotiva XSP-1 vs XSP-1 Gen 2

I am skeptical that the ERC-3 is anything near as wild a performer as described. One, it has a noisy transport for loading, ejecting, etc. 2, it has a budget chip for DAC duties. I had the ERC-1, and it was a disappointment. Too bright sounding, which is a weakness of all three Emotiva components I purchased.

The XPA amp would produce distortion at higher volumes when the vocalist sang an "sss". Repeatable every time, and when I replaced the amp with a Parasound Halo A21, WOW, what a difference. They offer a 30 day free trial, but you gotta pay over a $100 on average to ship a heavy amp back.

At the end of the day, there's no free lunch.

I had the XPA-3 amp for 3 years running flagship Paradigm speakers.

When the XPR amps came out everyone was adding up the cost of running 20 amp circuits in their homes. On the Emotiva forum, "unofficial" Emotiva reps were saying that you don't need to do that, just get a cheater plug, you'll never trip a 15 amp breaker in most cases.

Which is rather odd advice when you think of it. They say you'll never drive the amp over the 15 amp level, so why buy it if you won't use all the power? The other thing about those XPR amps is they claim they double the power at 4 ohms and are stable at 2 ohms, just like the big manufacturers. But Emotiva will not advertise the amps as such.

They just release this info on internet back channels. How odd is that. Anyone that makes an amp that is stable at 2 ohms proudly proclaims it, same with doubling your power at 4 ohms. I actually got the owner to respond in their forum, and the reason he gave for not advertising this like everyone else does, is that some people might push or abuse the amp to test this out. What??

The other thing is, 99.9% of people will never use all the watts of at least the XPR-2 and 1. It's silly power for mostly bragging rights. If you have 90 db sensitivity speakers, they'll be doing 117 decibels at 512 watts(at one meter distance) or about 120 decibels for the XPR-1. People will be screaming, running from the room, and then your speakers will blow up. So why spend for power that you'll never use, and Emotiva themselves say you won't need a 20 amp circuit? If you really want Emotiva, get the XPA-1 and at least save some money.

I've got 250 wpc in my 2 channel rig. It gets loud at a few watts, I doubt I use peaks of more than 100 watts.

99.9% of audiophiles do not need 500 or 600 watts to do the above, Lev, with a decent well put together system. Some guys achieve the 3D staging, detail, etc., with a small tube amp and efficient speakers. The audio world has been able to achieve excellent audio previous to the XPR amps being released, so suddenly it never happened and we must sell our amps and all buy the XPR series? I remain a sceptic.

Emotiva has as much as admitted you will never use all 600 watts when they themselves said you don't need a 20 amp circuit, which means you won't be using 16-20 amps or all of the power anyway. I think it's mostly the braggers or headbangers who will buy these silly amps of 600+ wpc and give themselves hearing damage.

No Lev, I'm not bitter, I just want people to know that when it comes to Emotiva, the king has no clothes. They could make top notch gear, but choose not to, and make more profits with the entry level stuff they put out.

As for your Thiel 3.6 speakers, yes they are rated for 500 watts at 4 ohms. The XPR-1 puts out 1750 watts at 4 ohms(FYI the XPA-1 puts out 1000 wpc at 4 ohms.). You don't use half of that. I mean, it's fine, buy whatever you want and be happy with it. But you are not going to convince anyone that your 500 watt speakers need 1750 watts.

That said, what I said is 99.99% of people don't need that kind of wattage. Using math, what that means is 1 person in 1,000 might need that kind of power. A very tiny minority, and I could certainly be off, but the thrust of my point holds up I believe. Bragging rights, they can be expensive.

And as for the personal attack comments, I have not called you a liar, nor have I inferred that you are lying, you are simply mistaken. And I have indeed purchased from the Audiogon site, best amp I ever bought.

Oops, with my 99.99% comment, I meant 99.9%, I typed one too many nines!