Emotiva equipmet, how good is it?

I’ve been using an Emotiva setup for 3 years and love it. I have a setup close to the initial system that someone else above started with. It’s their XSP-1 stereo pre-amp and the 2nd gen XPA-2 amplifier. Nothing but love for it. FWIW, which probably isn’t much for the internet, a couple buddies and I did a bunch of component head to head listening events. All blind taste testing for ears. When we did the pre-amps, several people picked my XSP-1 as their favorite, most picked a Spectral as the winner. We demoed like 11 pre-amps that people had in their houses either in active use or storage. The XPA-2 amp was similar. Power in spades though compared to some of the smaller high end stuff that people brought to the get together.

I have the Sherbourn PA-50 which is pretty much they same as the small Emotiva amp you’re looking at. It’s a nice little amp that’ll power most any smaller bookshelf. For its footprint it’s hard to beat.  

 IMHO the difference an amplifier makes in sound is subtle - to my ears. 

 I have 3 power amps - a Emotiva XP2, an old Cambridge 200 watt and an even older Phase Linear 400 S2. Remarkably the old Phase sounds really good powering some Yamaha 1000's running without a preamp as the Phase has volume controls.

 

I live in TN and spent the better part of an afternoon at Emotiva recently.  They are a great bunch of folks who are dedicated to offer high quality audio components at budget prices.  They would probably earn more respect if they doubled all their prices as we are wired to not believe anything can be of quality if its cheap.  I listened to their high-end 2-channel system with a pair of their older 600 watt mono block amps.  It had their top of the line CD player, Preamp and their larger tower speakers.  It sounded fantastic and I think the retail on the whole system was under $5k.  They offer a 30-day satisfaction return as well.  What you aren't going to get....yet....is a known and stable resale value.  One of my friends has an awesome system with McIntosh Preamp, CD Player & Tuner with PSB speakers.  He has an Emotiva 2-channel amp that sounds fantastic.  My tour ended in the owner's office where he has the least expensive system set up that I think is only around $1500 for everything.  It also sounded great.  I know its a bit of a leap of faith, but if you are a solid state lover, I think you will be happy with their products.  Good luck!

in one of my systems I am running a Cary pre-amp into 2 xpa-1 gen 2 Emotiva monoblocks running in Class A (manual or auto switchable)   I am biased toward hybrid systems I like the power of SS monoblocks,  Very happy with the set-up and the Emotivas have performed flawlessly for several years now.  I work from home and they are on constantly.   In another configuration I have a pair of xpa100s running the surround channels and again every effective in that position.

I've owned three of their amps, and used them with several different sets of speakers.  I think they are really good, and great for the cost.  But, I also found them a little fatiguing.  I think it's because they are a little on the "clinical" side.  In my system, especially with B&W speakers (805N, 803N, 9NT), I found it to be a little bright, and crisp.  You won't describe them as "warm" for sure.

In the end, I think it comes to synergy.  It was a good match, but not best possible match with B&W. They could match well with warmer sounding speakers.  If you can audition them, then there's your answer.