Emotiva equipmet, how good is it?

My experience with the Emotive DACs has been very positive. Not at all bright or thin sounding. I purchased 3 Emotiva XDA-1 DACs about 8 years ago for my 3 systems. I had them for over 3 years and during that time compared them to other DACs at similar prices but preferred the Emotivas. I replaced the XDA-1 with 3 XDA-2 DACs about 5 years ago and have been using them since. The XDA-2 was a definite improvement over the XDA-1 with a fuller, richer, warmer sound and the resistive ladder volume control so it could be used as a DAC and preamp. I would characterize the XDA-1 as neutral to slightly bright and the XDA-2 as neutral to slightly warm. Over the last few years I have auditioned several DACs costing 5 to 6 times the price of the XDA-2, but I preferred the XDA-2.

Regarding the blue LEDs, they have a dimmer button so they can be dimmed to barely noticeable. In fact the LEDs on my other components are brighter than the dimmed Emotiva LEDs.

Get mine, get mine! Get what I got and validate my decision.  ;^)

But seriously, I looked into the Class D suggested by @rar1 an was amused to find this in one of the reviews:
" I bought a pair of Totem Dreamcatcher speakers two weeks ago and the next day the right channel went out on my vintage Yamaha CR 1020 receiver. ....... This Class D Audio amp is a keeper."

I  had an Emotiva XDA dac.  It was the brightest and thinness sounding piece of crap I ever heard.  You get what you pay for.  The worst were the very bright and ugly led’s. It could burn holes in your eyeballs.  Never again, I got conned

My experience was similar to yours for the XDA-1.  Somewhat thin and bright sounding which made it harsh at higher volumes.  

Emotiva said it had lossless volume when it first came out so I bought it for preamp duties.  But when I auditioned it the volume ramped up so fast from zero to 15(out of 80 steps or so) that it was too loud at this point depending on the music being played.

Emotiva did fix this, by changing the firmware, but then they public ally admitted  that it didn’t have lossless volume, which makes it useless as a pre.  Which is the reason I bought it.   And this is on top of it being bright sounding.

it became clear to me that they didn’t really know what they were doing.   Their flagship 2 channel pre was delayed two or 3 years and with one delay announcement Lonnie said that when paired with the XDA, the soundstage collapsed, so they needed to rework things.  

Either they didn’t have control of the design process, or worse still, they did with the screw ups being directly their fault.

at the end of the day, Dan L. Is a businessman first, making deals and cutting costs.  He doesn’t design anything and pays people mostly in China to design and make whatever at a certain price point.

i prefer Schiit Audio these days because the founders design their own stuff, and obviously know what they are doing.  The dacs, headphone amps and amplifiers all work as intended with no surprises after the fact.  I’d advise the OP to put them on the short list as well.

Interesting how some people find the Emotive XDA-1 bright, but I never did. I would say it was brighter sounding than the XDA-2 but never harsh or too bright. I cannot stand a bright sound or any speakers with a harsh high end. For instance Klipsch speakers come to mind. Several of my friends have them and I cannot listen to them for a long period of time before fatigue sets in. In fact many speakers with a metal dome tweeter, I find to be too bright for me. 

I did audition a couple of the Schitt DACs a while back but I preferred the Emotiva XDA-2.

By the way the XDA-2 does have a lossless volume control so it can be used as a preamp but the XDA-1 does not and should never be used as a preamp.  

FYI to the OP, the XDA-2 is long out of production. Their current dac may be better.

LJG, you must understand, when Emotiva was selling the XDA-1, they were calling it a digital preamp, and marketing it as such. Doesn’t that seem just a little wrong headed??  Also, you dismiss Schiit Audio but have obviously not tried more than one or two models or versions of their DACs,  or else you would have at least mentioned one such model.

they currently offer 7 separate models.  The multibit stuff they have is amazing to me.   When I tried the entry level Modi Uber, I immediately realized it was superior to the XDA dac.  So I upgraded to the Bifrost Multibit and the detail it gives with warmth is something Emotiva could never achieve.  Ymmv.