Amp/Preamp Asylum

Looking for a new Amp or Preamp? If you're after tubes, post over here.

Use this form to submit comments directly to the Asylum moderators for this forum. We're particularly interested in truly outstanding posts that might be added to our FAQs.
You may also use this form to provide feedback or to call attention to messages that may be in violation of our content rules.

You must login to use this feature.

Inmate Login

By default, logging in will set a session cookie that disappears when you close your browser. Clicking on the 'Remember my Moniker & Password' below will cause a permanent 'Login Cookie' to be set.

Moniker/Username: The Name that you picked or by default, your email. Forgot Moniker?	Examples "Rapper", "Bob W", "joe@aol.com".
Password:	Forgot Password?
	Remember my Moniker & Password ( What's this?)

If you don't have an Asylum Account, you can create one by clicking Here.

Our privacy policy can be reviewed by clicking Here.

Inmate Comments

From:
Your Email:
Subject:

Message Comments

Original Message

RE: Anyone? What's your impression of Emotiva's XPA-1L "class A" monoblocks?

Posted by RGA on October 1, 2013 at 01:06:51:
What is the point exactly? You want to get class A to see if the forum pundits are correct or not right? Here's the thing - if you take this class A amp and it fails to live up to the forum pundit hype you KNOW what they are going to says it's because 1) Emotiva isn't really high end and thus 2) does no represent what class A SS amplification or class A in general is capable of producing.

If you want to judge the technologies you need to take home say three of the world's best class A/B amps, B amps, and Pure Class A amps regardless of price. Then you can judge the technology. Do the same at $1k and determine if what won the silly price shootout works at the cheaper end of the spectrum.

Just because something is Class A doesn't automatically make it better - Naim I believe is class B and they do pretty good. I have heard push pull A/B and hybrid amps sound better than SET. Just not at higher price levels. So I am somewhat inclined to believe that SET costs more to get right.

Sure there may be some "generalities" - take the old "less switches are better" routine - sure if all else is equal but if Amp A has a bunch of switches and amp B has none doesn;t mean B is going to sound better. It might but the rule to me only applies if you have amp A with switches versus amp A without switches. The former likely sounds better. But A with switches could kill amp B from some other worse designer.