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EMOTIVA Thread Q&A [TECHNICAL TALK ONLY] - Page 480

post #14371 of 16068
3/26/12 at 7:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by william06 View Post

I though it was law that any electronic product sold in the us had to be UL tested and listed. I guess I that is not true.

You are guessing correct. There is not a law that requires UL testing. I work for UL and we partner with the Manufactures for testing. All in all, it all boils down to the almighty $. It's not free to work with UL.

Quote:


Manufacturers submit products to UL for testing and safety certification on a voluntary basis. There are no laws specifying that a UL Mark must be used. However, in the United States there are many municipalities that have laws, codes or regulations which require a product to be tested by a nationally recognized testing laboratory before it can be sold in their area.
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post #14372 of 16068
4/1/12 at 8:47am
Hi all, I was wondering if the forum might help on this. I will try to re-read the entire thread here to see if I can find any similar stories, but I figured I may as well ask first.

So, I have an XPA-3 and two Klipsch THX KL-650 speakers. One of them definitely has a blown woofer, perhaps both. My problem is, the amp shuts itself off (blinking yellow lights) and I'm curious why. Does it detect the speaker has a problem and shuts down to protect itself?

It sounds fine until it does (minus the slight distortion in the left speaker).

Now, when I run the amp with my two B&W dm602 (also, very, very blown, but easy to drive), the amp does not shut off. I just tried plugging in only the right Klipsch speaker in the center channel of the amp (I normally run a 2.1 setup), again, shutdown. Almost immediately.

Q) Is my amp blown? Or is it behaving as expected, and I should be looking to get both my speakers fixed? Do Emotiva amps prefer only one speaker type in all three channels? Like if I have two 8 ohm speakers in the left and right channels, and a 4 ohm one in the middle channel, is that bad? I thought the channels were completely independent. Is the amp itself borked? I don't want to have to send it back to Emotiva to get repaired.
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post #14373 of 16068
4/1/12 at 8:57am
Shorted voice coil perhaps?
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post #14374 of 16068
4/1/12 at 9:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by RLBURNSIDE View Post

Hi all, I was wondering if the forum might help on this. I will try to re-read the entire thread here to see if I can find any similar stories, but I figured I may as well ask first.

So, I have an XPA-3 and two Klipsch THX KL-650 speakers. One of them definitely has a blown woofer, perhaps both. My problem is, the amp shuts itself off (blinking yellow lights) and I'm curious why. Does it detect the speaker has a problem and shuts down to protect itself?

It sounds fine until it does (minus the slight distortion in the left speaker).

Now, when I run the amp with my two B&W dm602 (also, very, very blown, but easy to drive), the amp does not shut off. I just tried plugging in only the right Klipsch speaker in the center channel of the amp (I normally run a 2.1 setup), again, shutdown. Almost immediately.

Q) Is my amp blown? Or is it behaving as expected, and I should be looking to get both my speakers fixed? Do Emotiva amps prefer only one speaker type in all three channels? Like if I have two 8 ohm speakers in the left and right channels, and a 4 ohm one in the middle channel, is that bad? I thought the channels were completely independent. Is the amp itself borked? I don't want to have to send it back to Emotiva to get repaired.

I'd say that the Klipsch probably has some internal damage, possibly to its crossover circuitry or to the voice coil wiring, and this is causing a short circuit which forces your Emo into protection. That is what it should so.

OTOH, the B&W maybe just has a damaged driver cone and no internal damage to the speaker circuitry. So it sounds bad but has no reason to force the Emo into protection.

I'd guess you have at least one speaker that you have not blown up, so just connect the Emo to that and see if it works properly. My guess is that it will.

Next, I'd try to figure out what I am doing that is destroying my speakers, and stop doing it

It's perfectly OK to connect two 4 ohm speakers and one 8 om speaker (or two 8 ohms and one 4 ohm) etc to an XPA-3.
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post #14375 of 16068
4/1/12 at 10:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by RLBURNSIDE View Post

Hi all, I was wondering if the forum might help on this. I will try to re-read the entire thread here to see if I can find any similar stories, but I figured I may as well ask first.

So, I have an XPA-3 and two Klipsch THX KL-650 speakers. One of them definitely has a blown woofer, perhaps both. My problem is, the amp shuts itself off (blinking yellow lights) and I'm curious why. Does it detect the speaker has a problem and shuts down to protect itself?

It sounds fine until it does (minus the slight distortion in the left speaker).

Now, when I run the amp with my two B&W dm602 (also, very, very blown, but easy to drive), the amp does not shut off. I just tried plugging in only the right Klipsch speaker in the center channel of the amp (I normally run a 2.1 setup), again, shutdown. Almost immediately.

Q) Is my amp blown? Or is it behaving as expected, and I should be looking to get both my speakers fixed? Do Emotiva amps prefer only one speaker type in all three channels? Like if I have two 8 ohm speakers in the left and right channels, and a 4 ohm one in the middle channel, is that bad? I thought the channels were completely independent. Is the amp itself borked? I don't want to have to send it back to Emotiva to get repaired.

I would say your concerns should be why you are blowing up your speakers. You either have to be playing your system to excessive volumes or have some type of connection issues frying your speakers.

Bill
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post #14376 of 16068
4/1/12 at 11:21am
I think my left speaker is only the thing blown. I just tried both speakers one at a time via my keyboard XLR plug on each of my three amp channels, and one speaker was clearly distorting while the other sounds great.

So I know what's causing the XPA-3 to shutdown now, I can rest easy. One less thing to fix. That's good. Actually, two, because now I know precisely that only one speaker is flawed at all, meaning my replacement drivers should do the trick to get me back up and running. For now I'll just play piano in Mono and use my old speakers for my TV/computer.
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post #14377 of 16068
4/1/12 at 11:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Mac View Post

I would say your concerns should be why you are blowing up your speakers. You either have to be playing your system to excessive volumes or have some type of connection issues frying your speakers.

Bill

I would concur with that, if one is abusing their system so much to have blown not one but two speakers, then if the amp is not damaged it soon will be.

On the other hand if the damaged speakers were just given or gotten on the cheap, then trying to fix them by yourself may be challenging if a crossover is involved. The XPA-3 is a decent amp, I have one too, but don't try to overdrive it if you are only running 2 channels out of three.
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post #14378 of 16068
4/26/12 at 6:22pm
If I bought a xpa-5 for my 5.1 system. Can I just use 2 channels when listening in 2 channel audio. I thought I read these amps don't like this
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post #14379 of 16068
4/26/12 at 6:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by snowx800 View Post

If I bought a xpa-5 for my 5.1 system. Can I just use 2 channels when listening in 2 channel audio. I thought I read these amps don't like this

I don't see why not. Up until I got my XPA2, I used my XPA-3 in 2ch mode when listening to music. Never had a problem with it.
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post #14380 of 16068
4/26/12 at 6:31pm
You should be fine as long as you don't have really demanding speakers and are listening really loud.
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post #14381 of 16068
4/26/12 at 7:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by snowx800 View Post

If I bought a xpa-5 for my 5.1 system. Can I just use 2 channels when listening in 2 channel audio. I thought I read these amps don't like this


You recall correctly. Lonnie talked about this on their forum. But I think it was when you really pushed your amp hard it could over draw and cause trouble. If you keep from driving the amp hard you should be fine. Yet another thing about Emotiva amps that seems low budget. I have not heard of any single other amp manufacturer that warns its customers when playing only 2 channels of a multi channel amp. At 899 they have to cut corners somewhere I guess.
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post #14382 of 16068
4/26/12 at 7:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by runnin' View Post


You recall correctly. Lonnie talked about this on their forum. But I think it was when you really pushed your amp hard it could over draw and cause trouble. If you keep from driving the amp hard you should be fine. Yet another thing about Emotiva amps that seems low budget. I have not heard of any single other amp manufacturer that warns its customers when playing only 2 channels of a multi channel amp. At 899 they have to cut corners somewhere I guess.

I was a little worried I like playing my music fairly loud. Maybe I should look else where. Thanks
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post #14383 of 16068
4/26/12 at 7:30pm
If your mains aren't to difficult to power it won't matter. What mains do you have?
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post #14384 of 16068
4/27/12 at 5:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by runnin' View Post

You recall correctly. Lonnie talked about this on their forum. But I think it was when you really pushed your amp hard it could over draw and cause trouble. If you keep from driving the amp hard you should be fine. Yet another thing about Emotiva amps that seems low budget. I have not heard of any single other amp manufacturer that warns its customers when playing only 2 channels of a multi channel amp. At 899 they have to cut corners somewhere I guess.

The topic was because some folks wanted to use a XPA-5 with no other intent than to use it for 1 or 2 channels, because that way, the single shared power supply would only need to power 1 or 2 channels, hence produce (sleightly) more power. Which is not what they are designed for. There's no problem in listening to stereo with a XPA-5 in a multichannel setup. Just don't use a XPA-5 in a stereo set. Get 2 XPA-1!

The only corner I can think off being cut is the plastic start button... Krell and co use much nicer material for that
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post #14385 of 16068
4/27/12 at 6:00am
I am using my XPA-5 to drive my rear 2 speakers in a 7.1 config. No problems, also used an XPA-3 to drive a pair of Dali Helicon 300 MKII's for a few months, with no issues.
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post #14386 of 16068
4/27/12 at 8:36am
I have an XPA-3, and never worry about overdriving it. My opinion is that the concept of not using the 3 and 5 for stereo use (primarily) is CYA from Emo.

I believe they saw a few amps fail under conditions which made them issue the statement.

But what's required to overdrive one of those? Trying to use to emulate a Motley Crue concert?

My opinion is that there's no issue with any reasonable use case.
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post #14387 of 16068
4/28/12 at 7:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by snowx800 View Post

If I bought a xpa-5 for my 5.1 system. Can I just use 2 channels when listening in 2 channel audio. I thought I read these amps don't like this

Perhaps my particular unit likes this sort of treatment, I don't know.

Seriously, I've used my XPA5 frequently in exactly that way with no issue whatsoever for over a year, driving fairly demanding Dali Helicon 400s at reasonably high levels (85dB @9').
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post #14388 of 16068
4/28/12 at 8:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelJHuman View Post

I have an XPA-3, and never worry about overdriving it. My opinion is that the concept of not using the 3 and 5 for stereo use (primarily) is CYA from Emo.

I believe they saw a few amps fail under conditions which made them issue the statement.

But what's required to overdrive one of those? Trying to use to emulate a Motley Crue concert?

My opinion is that there's no issue with any reasonable use case.

+1. These amps are pretty beefy and I'm not concerned either.
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post #14389 of 16068
4/29/12 at 2:43am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoundofMind View Post

Perhaps my particular unit likes this sort of treatment, I don't know.

Seriously, I've used my XPA5 frequently in exactly that way with no issue whatsoever for over a year, driving fairly demanding Dali Helicon 400s at reasonably high levels (85dB @9').

I'd say 85db at 9' is a reasonable level. I wouldn't really consider that reasonably high. I think the potential problem comes from folks trying to drive a stereo pair of lower than 89db/w/m 4ohm speakers to 105db (or more?) at 10'. The amps share a common power supply and rail, but each channel has a limited number of output devices (6 per channel in the XPA-3 vs 12 in the XPA-2 and 24 in the XPA-1). The rail in the XPA-3 and 5 can draw more than each channel's outputs can handle.

Folks playing at sane levels are fine.


Max
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post #14390 of 16068
4/29/12 at 7:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by djbluemax1 View Post

...Folks playing at sane levels are fine. Max

Right. And playing at sane levels is important if one wants to remain SoundofMind.

I forgot to mention that I keep the subs running in Stereo mode so the two front channels aren't taxing the Emo with the whole load anyway.
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post #14391 of 16068
4/29/12 at 8:04am
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoundofMind View Post

I forgot to mention that I keep the subs running in Stereo mode so the two front channels aren't taxing the Emo with the whole load anyway.

They could handle the load. I have my Bryston running full range to the philharmonic 2s and the 2 SVS subs running in stereo.
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post #14392 of 16068
4/30/12 at 2:49pm
Ok, forgive me, but I haven't been following the thread. What do people think about the XMC-1? I know it's not out yet, but is it worth the money? And do you think I should go with the UMC-1 and do the 40% upgrade thing? You do end up saving $100.
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post #14393 of 16068
4/30/12 at 4:06pm
^^^

well, if you listen to some, it will be greatest thing since sliced bread...

however, if you look at past history, i wouldn't want to be an early adopter* of anything from emo when it comes to pre-pros...

if it was me, and my money, i would stick with the major cem's when it comes to pre-pros/avrs...

* or even a late adopter... considering the 2 years late to market umc-1 still has issues 2 years after it's release...
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post #14394 of 16068
4/30/12 at 5:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ccotenj View Post

^^^

well, if you listen to some, it will be greatest thing since sliced bread...

however, if you look at past history, i wouldn't want to be an early adopter* of anything from emo when it comes to pre-pros...

if it was me, and my money, i would stick with the major cem's when it comes to pre-pros/avrs...

* or even a late adopter... considering the 2 years late to market umc-1 still has issues 2 years after it's release...

I hear you on that and I've read about the issues with the UMC-1, but if I buy an older model, I don't have the latest codecs etc.

My Onkyo 875's HDMI out is dead and need to find a new pre-pro. I already have an XPA-5.
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post #14395 of 16068
4/30/12 at 5:20pm
I've been tossing up the same. The UMC still has a strong resell value, and the discount off the XMC is generous, therefore I dont think you could lose out on buying a UMC with the option to upgrade, however I still cant see myself blind-buying one.
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post #14396 of 16068
4/30/12 at 5:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by erwinfrombelgium View Post

The topic was because some folks wanted to use a XPA-5 with no other intent than to use it for 1 or 2 channels, because that way, the single shared power supply would only need to power 1 or 2 channels, hence produce (sleightly) more power. Which is not what they are designed for. There's no problem in listening to stereo with a XPA-5 in a multichannel setup. Just don't use a XPA-5 in a stereo set. Get 2 XPA-1!

The only corner I can think off being cut is the plastic start button... Krell and co use much nicer material for that


My recollection is different, I recall some using an XPA-5 in a 5 channel system, but cranking it for 2 channel and apparently some issues arose, hence Lonnie's explanation, and recommendation to buy an XPA-2 and 3 for some applications.

Also, on corners cut, most of their amps have smallish power supplies, less cap capacity, higher THD at rated power and issues with RCA connects breaking on some models. But 899 is a great bang for buck price.
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post #14397 of 16068
5/1/12 at 1:04pm
Has anyone tried to play 3d through a UMC-1? My harmon kardon 7300 is really showing its age but the amps still fine. Was thinking of giving the umc1 a shot but I need to pass 3d from ps3 to my panny plasma. I know its not supposed to work but I was supposed to have to buy new hdmi cables for 3d and my old daytons work fine. Just thought someone on here may have tried it by now.
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post #14398 of 16068
5/1/12 at 1:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jonLavs View Post

I hear you on that and I've read about the issues with the UMC-1, but if I buy an older model, I don't have the latest codecs etc.

My Onkyo 875's HDMI out is dead and need to find a new pre-pro. I already have an XPA-5.

have you considered using an avr with pre-outs instead of a pre-pro? that's likely your best option...
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post #14399 of 16068
5/1/12 at 1:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ccotenj View Post


have you considered using an avr with pre-outs instead of a pre-pro? that's likely your best option...

The Denon 4311 comes to mind. Audyssey XT32, Audyssey Pro ready and costs less than the forthcoming XMC.
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post #14400 of 16068
5/1/12 at 2:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ccotenj View Post

have you considered using an avr with pre-outs instead of a pre-pro? that's likely your best option...

So a couple of concerns come to mind:

1. Am I paying more because I now am paying for an amp that I don't need.
2. Am I losing sound and video quality using an AVR which may be of lesser quality?

Those are just some questions that go through my mind. It seems like a waste to me to buy an AVR when I have no intention to use the Amp section. The product will have diverted funds that would go into higher quality components to go into the amp section versus using the best quality components for just the pre-pro.
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