Finally Emotivated - USP-1 and XPA-200

[Shyamtanu]

Dear All,

Happy to report that the Emotiva-Fedex-Borderlinx-DHL-RCS Courier (the last one was scary) chain did not break and I have safely received the components and set it up. Music is all over the place, too many things to write, which I shall do slowly... right from purchase to setup. For now some pics. There is a sub which is hidden under the cabinet and cannot be seen. The sub is Sony (don't be surprised), it is 8.3 kgs heavy stuff, 200 RMS bass reflex with 20cm driver, beefy powerful amp, goes down to 38 Hz, I have set the low pass filter at 80Hz in USP-1, and I realized that the 12L2 needs very little help from the sub, it is receiving the full range signal so in all it sounds like a 2.5 way set up. One thing is I will need attenuators of -6 db, do we get them here in India? I would prefer the harrison labs ones. The reason mostly is, that the input sensitivity of the power amp is 1.1 V whereas USP-1 output varies from 2.2 to 7 so need to tame it down a bit, but the biggest change is, I am not missing tone controls! I am able to listen to old hindi movie songs to Enya to Yanni to Techno, great stuff, huge improvement really, much understated in this age of what hifi reviews and advertisements. I shall also submit an article on watts and capacitance sometime, to take a stab at the much hyped wattage battle

PS - the remote is special.. weighs 0.5 kgs.. all aluminium body and steel buttons, to change batteries, you need to remove six screws and then put it back, solid build quality there

 

[alphacentury100]

Congratulations. What was the Total landing cost of the equipments. Was it sent directly by Emotiva or purchased using 3rd parties like Aramax?

 

[denom]

Congrats,

Glad that you finally bought what you were looking for.

PS: Hope the 'emergency' situation you had @ home is now over.

 

[Shyamtanu]

Thx bro.. as I said "Emotiva-Fedex-Borderlinx-DHL-RCS Courier" so it came via borderlinx, total damage 64-65k including shipping

 

[Santy]

Congratulations.. Enjoy your new rig.
I suggest to separate the speakers if possible by 2 feet further, for better imaging.

 

[Shyamtanu]

Thanks.... yesss... enjoying every bit of it, will post more details, @Santy - my speaker cables are not that long, but I am buying more of carnival stuff to get that length corrected, you are absolutely right.
@Dave Sir... the situation is better now, else I won't take the plunge, thanks for asking. The demo did not take place but I went with my gut feel, and it turned out a good combination luckily

 

[Shyamtanu]

The Ordering Process

First, the paypal bit. I did not have an account so had to set up one. They are very secure, you cannot make a payment unless bank account and at least one card is not verified.Emotiva was very quick in sending me an invoice (paypal invoice) so all I needed to do was make the payment on that invoice using the registered card on Paypal. Now, there are two options, one is Paypal tells you the INR amount, second is they charge you on USD, and your indian credit card adds its own charges (I verified that - for Citi, the charges are - 3.5% of total USD is conversion charges + 12% of that 3.5% is service tax). I went by Paypal amount as that was telling me exact INR amount, the difference between the two on that date currency rate was around 800 INR, however I have checked that Citi charged me nothing more than what Paypal had mentioned. So that is good.
Initially Emotiva told me that they will ship XPA-200 on 10th jan, but actually shipped out both as soon as I made the payment. I had already made the calculation of shipment with Borderlinx. Fedex delivered on the promised date. I did not get email notification from Borderlinx on the items being delivered to them, however I was checking it anyway. Considering the shipment weight of 26 kgs, the estimate was about 20k including all duties. Now, I made the payment straight away using citibank credit card, which charged me again in INR. had I taken Fedex delivery of Emotiva, the cost will be around 15 k more, as custom charges are funny, as per the slips I received with the delivery. There were some anxious moments as though it came to India in flat 3 days, DHL does not deliver in my area, so they handed over to RCS courier, the guy called me to say there are some octroi charges of around 1800, which I refuted, spoke to DHL to sort out the issue, which they did. So, all I had to do was to receive it, with no charges to pay at doorstep. The condition of the good were very good, Emotiva packs them very carefully. USP-1 was packed in the best quality Styrofoam I have seen, both boxes were double packed.

Adding two images - one for the added speaker cable, now it looks better and images much better, you can also see the sub woofer towards the left.
Second one, my own solution for protecting the RCA connection points on amps, you get a 10mm dia plastic pipe from hardware/electrical shops, 10 rs/mtr, cut them about 1-1.5 cm and they will fit just right, and then fill it up with cotton to protect from dust/insects etc. Hope this will help. I shall write about sound next time.

 

[docd]

Congrats for your purchase. Eagerly awaiting the review!

 

[pungan]

Congrats, clean setup looks good.

 

[srinisundar]

Shyamtanu, Congrats on your purchase. Taken an route of Emotiva Speaker cables & interconnects too and you will not disappointed.
Regards

 

[Shivam]

Re: The Ordering Process

Second one, my own solution for protecting the RCA connection points on amps, you get a 10mm dia plastic pipe from hardware/electrical shops, 10 rs/mtr, cut them about 1-1.5 cm and they will fit just right, and then fill it up with cotton to protect from dust/insects etc. Hope this will help. I shall write about sound next time.

Good idea. I'll do the same with my components too. :clapping:

 

[Shyamtanu]

Now the all important sound - Part 1

Before I got them delivered, I changed my speaker cables from DAC 14 AWG to Chord Carnival SilverScreen, initially I was in doubt about the placebo effects, so I got the effects checked by my wife as well, who said that it feels like the garbage is removed. So that was there. However, my earlier amp (now resting in packed condition, may be I shall sell it off) PM6003 sounded much cleaner, and in better control of the Quads with the new cable. So, when the Emotiva gears came in, I was not sure what to expect. However, it took a bit of time to hook it all up mainly due to the limitations of my audio rack (I designed it and got it custom built by a carpenter as I said earlier). I always have an uncanny fear whenever I plug a new equipment in for the first time, what if it is broken inside, what if there is a funny smoke etc.. however, I switched on the power buttons of the pre and power amp, both automatically switched to 230V and peacefully went to standby mode. I had already connected the trigger cable, checked it was working fine. Now I spun Truth of Touch (Yanni) on my CD6003 (will keep this one even if I end up selling off PM6003). The change was not something of a ghetto blast, thankfully. In fact for sometime I was wondering if anything changed, but that was only for 5 minutes or so. The dynamic range, placement and depth became evident soon after the amp warmed up. In studio recordings, artificially channels are balanced at times to portray a flat, wide spectrum of sound. I changed to This Love (Sarah Brightman - La Luna), there was a rainy background, hidden till now, the voice started floating, and the drummer was somewhere behind her, so for the very first time, I found horizontal as well as depth perception in sound. More later, as I will describe using the subwoofer and 12L2 together, honestly, with good recording, you need little help from sub as the sound is very balanced, the power amp has perfect control on my speakers, and it completely silent. This is crucial, I test that by setting volume at minimum (zero) and listening to the tweeter with my ears bang opposite to it, PM6003 has a hiss - albeit minimal, but XPA-200 has zero hiss, that is great stuff! Certainly this system is far more transparent, and natural for me. Most importantly, I realized how under driven the speakers were! It used to cause us headaches but now there is no trouble listening at 9.00 position. There is room for improvement though, which I will do later, may be by an attenuation after the preamp. Right now the loudness is bit tamed after I added 2 mtrs of speaker cable on both sides. I do not really need to play loud as the sound is so smooth and revealing, my room does not have enough damping so it is not good to play loud really for critical listening. One aspect of the 12L2 is, the crossover does not seem to force a roll off or cut off between the driver, their design philosophy is to blend them based on natural roll off and take over, which results in a very cohesive soundstage, I am adding just the sub bass and adding some weight to the low mid range/upper bass, in a small room, these speakers don't even need a sub woofer kick. They indeed seem to go to 45 Hz at -3db as claimed/tested. Another fact about the power amp, I tried playing some Orchestra stuff at low volume, the resolution and overtones of Piano along with the decay was really sweet and occasional bursts of chello, double bass and violins were delivered in spades, and despite 3 hrs of continuous running at various volumes, the power amp did not show even the least amount of heat. This stuff should last long.

 

[narcissus]

Re: The Ordering Process

Initially Emotiva told me that they will ship XPA-200 on 10th jan, but actually shipped out both as soon as I made the payment. I had already made the calculation of shipment with Borderlinx. Fedex delivered on the promised date. I did not get email notification from Borderlinx on the items being delivered to them, however I was checking it anyway. Considering the shipment weight of 26 kgs, the estimate was about 20k including all duties. Now, I made the payment straight away using citibank credit card, which charged me again in INR. had I taken Fedex delivery of Emotiva, the cost will be around 15 k more, as custom charges are funny, as per the slips I received with the delivery. There were some anxious moments as though it came to India in flat 3 days, DHL does not deliver in my area, so they handed over to RCS courier, the guy called me to say there are some octroi charges of around 1800, which I refuted, spoke to DHL to sort out the issue, which they did. So, all I had to do was to receive it, with no charges to pay at doorstep. The condition of the good were very good, Emotiva packs them very carefully. USP-1 was packed in the best quality Styrofoam I have seen, both boxes were double packed.

Hey Shyam, Congrats on acquiring this lovely setup. I have been juggling with the idea of importing audio equipment from the US/UK, i just got to know about "Borderlinx" upon reading your post.

What bothers me is that I'am not at all comfortable with the customs & excise dept in Bombay. Once the shipment arrives they can hold me at ransom, which ofcourse is a bad feeling.

Is importing USED audio equipment allowed? You paid 20k to Borderlinx for 26kgs & i assume you opted for the "EXPRESS" delivery since the package was delivered in 3 days flat. What was the value of the goods declared.

If you will, I can call you & speak at length?

Best regards
Behruz

 

[asliarun]

Congratulations on your new purchase, Shyamtanu! I'm sure you will enjoy your new setup for a long time. A well written review too, by the way.

I run the USP-1 as a pre as well, and I too was surprised at the level of detail and quality of soundstage it is capable of producing. I quite like what Emotiva stands for - they deliver value in spades.

 

[SatMumbai]

Congratulations!

I always liked Emotiva as a brand and I am sure the VFM is unbeatable. I hope to hear some Emotiva amps at some point of time

 

[Shyamtanu]

Re: The Ordering Process

If you will, I can call you & speak at length?

Best regards
Behruz

Sure... check your PM inbox... thanks.. to answer your question, I selected normal/standard delivery, and Borderlinx will charge you the same for old/new equipment I guess as they charge based on weight, but the duty will vary as that works on the value of the goods being imported. They have a cost calculator which worked well for me, and the online chat option is fantastic.

Regards
Shyam

 

[Shyamtanu]

The all important sound - Part 2

I wanted to write something on the difference between my earlier integrated PM6003 and this one. However, one should ideally not compare between a separate setup and an in integrated as the business case and performance/design considerations are quite different. Still being fair in their own worlds, there are certain characters that stand apart. the black alps potentiometer on Pm6003 is a much better one than the one used on USP-1, the one used in USP-1 always progresses a certain amount no matter how long you press the button, it is like the gradient is sharp, PM6003 volume control gives you smaller increments. I knew it already, but felt it to be true as well. I do not think I can go past 9.00 position on USP-1 as it is too much for my room. At 8.00 position it gives ideal level considering my listening distance etc. At lower level, the detail is more enriched, and it does wonderful justice to even the smallest bit of sound. at very low volume, the power amp may be the cause for this. PM6003 has a unique sense of speed and dynamic agility. Emotiva sounds too effortless for all the dynamics of music. It does not mean it lacks the energy, but it does not highlight/hide any particular frequency hence sounds neutral, this may be just my thing. The marantz house sound is at play here I guess, but now I know why I did not miss my tone controls on PM6003. If I have to be really critical, it seems to sound just a tad bright on certain recordings, but only if listen at above 8.30 position.
On the balancing side, for old recording/mono recording, I am considering Behringer: MINIFBQ FBQ800 any guess whether it would be good for the final refinement or I should not use it in the chain? Some recordings do need some adjustment to make the best out of them for sure and I prefer dedicated equalizer to tone controls for obvious reasons.

P.S. I also tried microphone with http://tascam.com/product/us-100/ and the voice sounds really good on the setup. US-100 works well as microphone amp as well.

 

[mpw]

good review of your impressions shyam..

rgds,
mpw

 

[sandeepmohan]

Heard the Emotiva XPA-5 some time ago and was simply blown away by the performance. This is serious Hi Fi and Home Theater for not so much money. Excellent choice for your rig.

 

[Shyamtanu]

After a long time, I had the time to log in here and share some more feedback on the system. I have changed the earlier Audioquest Sidewinder interconnect with Chord Crimson VEE3. The earlier one is now doing the duty as DVD to USP-1 connection. I played 'This is It' DVD (MJ) to see how the system behaves as a front channel for HT set up and it is quite commendable. However, something was still amiss, I felt at the 9.00 position or above I was losing the clarity and it was getting muddled a bit. Then I started doing experiment with the high pass filter. Till now, I was giving the full range output to the Quad 12L2. However, it is tricky as very difficult to find the right balance between the sub woofer and the quads, you have to keep on experimenting. But the reward has been worth it. The mid bass driver breathes easy now, I have bass at my own command crossed over at around 100 Hz, the clarity and resolution has improved multiple times. In fact there is so much power and resolution that the room, furniture etc issues have been negated to a great extent. In a way, from 2.5 way it is now kind of 3 way arrangement.