emotiva mono block amps any good?

Lowrider,

There is surprisingly little info about the XPR, or I just didn't find it. I did a little looking during some downtime at work and didn't find much in the form of reviews.

What I have run across is a pic of the inside of an XPR-1...

http://www.technologytell.com/hometech/files/2013/01/Internals-of-Emotiva-XPR-1-Mono-block-Reference-Power-Amplifier.jpg

I've also found out that the XPR-1 is actually two amps running in bridged mode running to a bank of 24 10KuF caps that are manufactured by Emotiva for the XPR line.

Many are raving about them on the Emotiva boards. They are also saying that the XPR amps are apparently a healthy step up from the XPA line.

It looks like a beast under the hood.

What I'd really like to know is how many of those watts are available in pure Class A.

Sometimes the best part of the upper crust is the flakiest.

Tony, that's good research. Reviews of the XPA have been very mixed, but the XPR looks like a step forward. Funny...I was wondering about the Class A wattage myself.

Yeah, I ran across a post in a thread that said that the XPR actually does less than 1 watt in class A before it switches to class H, whatever that is.

At this point, however, I'm not willing to discount any advancement in technology, in light of what has been accomplished with class D technology.

Now you'll have to excuse my ignorance, but isn't it not so good to put the caps so far away from the amp modules? I don't know. I wish someone would chime in with some first hand experience.

Oh, I also ran across a couple of posts in the Emotiva forums that were made by Emotiva employees and according to them, they had to specify a dedicated 20 amp line because it was necessary to accommodate the amount of current drawn during testing. They said that in real world use it was very unlikely that a dedicated 20 amp line would be necessary.

I was expecting about 10 watts class A from an amp that massive.
From when I was researching Bob Carver designs; an explanation...

Class G amplifiers (which use "rail switching" to decrease power consumption and increase efficiency) are more efficient than class AB amplifiers. These amplifiers provide several power rails at different voltages and switch between them as the signal output approaches each level. Thus, the amplifier increases efficiency by reducing the wasted power at the output transistors.

Class H amplifiers take the idea of class G one step further creating an infinitely variable supply rail. This is done by modulating the supply rails so that the rails are only a few volts larger than the output signal at any given time. The output stage operates at its maximum efficiency all the time. Switched-mode power supplies can be used to create the tracking rails. Significant efficiency gains can be achieved but with the drawback of more complicated supply design and reduced THD performance.