Help make a decision on Emotiva XPA-3

[elrolo]

This forum of knowledgeable people made me a believer in Klipsch
speakers. Before that I had sony, Yamaha, bose, and boston acoustics. I
finally saved money to try out klipsch . Very happy with these
speakers, they are definitely more efficient than all the speakers
I''ve wasted my money on. Still, I'm always trying find what else I can
do to make my speakers sound as close as possible to a movie
theater, where the sound is so crunchy, full of detail, very clean, and
has that peculiar dialogue that just stands out. I go to my home theater
and I just can't seem to hear that movie theater-like sound from my
speakers. So a lot of talk out there says that by adding an external
amplifier like the Emotiva XPA-3 which can put 200watts RMS on each of the 3
channels (which is what I would mostly care for the fronts) can improve
my sound by a lot... So my question to anyone who knows about power,
RMS, amplifiers and the like Please tell me

1) whether or not this extra amplifier will make much of a difference ..... and

2) Can my speakers handle the extra watts or will this amp damage my speakers up the volume at low levels

I
don't listen to loud volume and not looking for loudness. I listen at a
volume at -30db from the reference sound being at 0db.

My gadgets are the following: ___________________________________

Onkyo HT-RC180 is a 7.2 channel with pre-outs in the back.

Center Klispch RC-42 II rated at 75 watt RMS

Fronts Klipsch RB-41 II rated at 50 watt RMS

Surrounds Klipsch Quintet 5.0 rated at 50 RMS (not relevant since don't plan to use an external amp on these)

Please let me know. I have no idea if this will make any difference or just leave it like that..

Thanks.....[]

[dtel]

1) whether or not this extra amplifier will make much of a difference ..... and

2) Can my speakers handle the extra watts or will this amp damage my speakers up the volume at low levels

I

don't listen to loud volume and not looking for loudness. I listen at a

volume at -30db from the reference sound being at 0db.

Welcome

One oponion....

I don't have one but I think the extra amplifier would make it sound better, even the rears would sound better from the extra receiver power.

I would think your front 3 would be fine with the extra amp, especially if you don't want it extremely loud.

Have you let the receiver adjust the levels or did it yourself ? You could always bump up the center channel up a little.

I did not see a sub listed, and for movies it really helps, not what I thought when you said crunch but it would help.

Is the room huge ?

[elrolo]

Hey thanks for your insight! Greatly appreciated. I do have a sub velodyne 150 watt.

And I have a small room.

Thanks.

[SuBXeRo]

Welcome to club Klipsch!

An XPA-3 is a great amplifier...unfortunately though.it wouldnt benefit you. I had the rf-10 and rb-10 speakers which are basically the same as yours and i was practically blowing the drivers with my denon receiver.

If you wanted to upgrade you could always get a UPA series amplifier from emotiva. They are making a new UPA-5 that will come out later this year. The old one was 125 watts a channel which is a great amount of headroom for your speakers. The most noticable thing with an outboard amp would be the sound quality. Emotiva makes very clean sounding amps.

If you truly want an upgrade that would improve your experience considerably, purchase the rf-52 II's. This is if you can fit and afford floorstanders. You can move the rb-41 II's to the rears and you could sell the quintets or use them for additonal speakers to make a 7.0 or 7.1 if you get a sub. My reasoning behind suggesting this is that the rb-41's are clean and clear sounding but have a small soundstage. The rf-52's would enlarge your soundstage and increase bass output.

Your receiver is somthing your certainly didnt skimp on. Each channel is rated for 110 watts. Unfortunately that is not wholey true. With all of those channels being driven at one time, you would most likey receive around 50-70 watts per channel. This is not bad because the speakers you have really dont rquire much juice to run. Speakers like the rf-62's and rf-82's draw more juice because of the larger woofers thusly producing deeper bass and requiring more energy to move the drivers. You really dont have aneed to upgrade your amplifier power unless you wanted maybe some cleaner high current power which you dont "need" to drive the speakers you have. Can an outboard amp prove to be useful? Of course, it cant hurt!

Just a note on power of amps. The xpa-3 puts out 200 watts a channel min. This means that if you turned the volume all the way up on your onkyo to max, it would tell the amp to put out as much power as it can. At that point you would be putting out around the 100ish a channel. When your speakers are on low, you would only be using maybe a few watts a channel. You can tell wheny ou are overdriving your speakers because it wont sound right and you can hear them bottoming out. The idea of having extra power on head is to reduce the chance of clipping from underpowering a speaker. Its also useful so that you can produce enough power to produce the lower frequencies with larger drivers. You could put a 1000 watt amp on each of the speakers and you wouldnt blow them unless you turned the volume up soo high that you were exceeding the speakers capabilities.

Final word....
An upgrade of speakers would benefit you more than an outboard amplifier will. If you love your klipsch speakers now, try out the rf-52 floorstander and it will be night and day difference. I would forgo the rf-42's as its ~150bux more and the larger driver size of the rf-52's will produce bass more efficiently. The tweeter sizes are also the same size with same size horn and same exact high frequency crossover so they would match up perfectly timbre wise.

Also, you can tune the different channels i think with individual High pass crossovers so you could potentially set your towers at say 60hz and the center at 75hz. You can also set them to small or large. With what you havem everything should be set to small. If you get rf-52's you could set them to large and everything else to small. It takes time to tune it all just right. Also keep in mind that you may have to set the gain on the rb-41's up a few db's to help and match its sensitivity to the other speakers. You are basically telling the receiver to supply more power to the rb-41's so that when you raise the volume they match apmplitude with the rest of the system. Best way to describe this is that right now, your center is probably louder than your left and right channel. By turning up the gain, the left and right speakers would sound the same voume as the center. Just a helpful trick you can mess around with later!

[elrolo]

Hey thanks for your insight. Man you sure seem to know what your talking about. I knew that someone out there

had some knowledge on these speakers and amplifier. I would definitiveley look into the rf-52's

speakers . I think I have a better understanding now. What an amazing system setup you got!

Thanks once again for your knowleadgeable input.. It sure helps me understand this better.

[JasonJCarney]

Delete

[Heritage_Head]

I agree with everything SuBXeRo said only thing I would say is if you’re going to upgrade your fronts I would get the rf-62 or the rf-82 the rf-52 are pretty small for floor standing speakers. It would be an upgrade but I think anything smaller than the rf-62 is almost a bookshelf speaker or mini floor standing speaker. But best thing to do is go hear for yourself (rf-52 rf-62 rf-82) and see what sounds closest to what your ultimately looking for (the movie sound you talked about) and get that speaker. you can get any of them for the cost close to the xpa-3. I’ve read on many forums and I agree 100% when buying front speakers buy the best you can afford and have space for. It will save you so much money down the road when you go to upgrade your other gear because you will have fronts that will keep up. Like if you get a better center down the road you will already be set (rc-62) if you get a new amp (xpa-3) you will be set and so on.

[cornfedksboy]

I agree with everything SuBXeRo said only thing I would say is if you’re going to upgrade your fronts I would get the rf-62 or the rf-82 the rf-52 are pretty small for floor standing speakers. It would be an upgrade but I think anything smaller than the rf-62 is almost a bookshelf speaker or mini floor standing speaker. But best thing to do is go hear for yourself (rf-52 rf-62 rf-82) and see what sounds closest to what your ultimately looking for (the movie sound you talked about) and get that speaker. you can get any of them for the cost close to the xpa-3. I’ve read on many forums and I agree 100% when buying front speakers buy the best you can afford and have space for. It will save you so much money down the road when you go to upgrade your other gear because you will have fronts that will keep up. Like if you get a better center down the road you will already be set (rc-62) if you get a new amp (xpa-3) you will be set and so on.

If you are going to upgrade do it all the way...but, I was very impressed with the RF-52s, and while they LOOK like bookshelves on stands, the sound quality they put out, IMO was much better than any bookshelf I have heard. They are very detailed and very directional, but the soundstage is significantly smaller. I think the 52s are perfect for the casual HT fan or a small room (less than 1250 cubic foot). If your room gets too large, then the smallish RF-52/RF-42s tend to get lost and only have a narrow sweet spot. For a true HT experience, I think you have to plan on dual 6" woofers as the entry level.

[SuBXeRo]

one of the reasons why i suggested the rf-52's is because it seems that you are a bit conservative with your system size. The rf-62's would work and the 82's as well but at that point, it wouldn't hurt to upgrade your center channel as well. You could most likely get away with it with the 62's but the 82's should be coupled with a larger center. I used an RC-10 for a while with my rf-3's and it actually worked pretty well. The upgrade tot he rc-3 II was much welcomed and worth it.

Just give us so more info of where you would like to take things now that you have some more knowledge on hand!

[Jsaint]

'' Shake, Shake '' Magic 8 Ball say's,

Definitely.

[tragusa3]

That sound of the commercial theater that you aren't getting is what I call "BIG". You have to move several steps up the food chain in speakers before you start getting "BIG" sound. An overly capable subwoofer is more than 50% of that formula as well.

I absolutely agree with the suggestions to spend the money in speakers before amp. I also agree with the smart suggestion to take as few baby steps as possible. Will the 52's be an improvement? yes. But as your experience progresses, so will your desires. It's not the cost of speakers thats expensive, it's upgrading several times over that starts to eat up the money. I'd jump all the way to the RF82 and a center and at that point you stand a chance of being satisfied for quite some time.

Also, consider the used market for the Heritage line. You can get a pair of Cornwalls/Chorus for less than the RF82, and have a superior system.

[elitedemo]

id get some towers that can handle the power before getting the amp just so its a worthwhile upgrade, if your looking at the power a xpa brings to the table id suggest rf82s or better to unleash its benefits and then put the rb41s on rear duty, then id do the center, then the rears or then add an amp, that would be my order of execution, id sell the quintets to help ease part of the cost of towers and go to a stronger 5 channel rather than a lower 7 channel, once the groundwork is all laid out would be the time id add the remaining 2 speakers, amps do add amazing detail but more so when the receiver becomes more of a bottleneck

i think what your describing for movie theater experience really sits around the rf82 series and matching rc62 center, this i think is the sweet spot and probably the starting point of where the amps become worth their money and show you what the speakers can do

[elrolo]

I wanna thank all you Jedi audiophile masters for the invaluable insiders information on this

topic of bigger speakers VS external amp. Seem like the verdict is out and I'm gonna have to

save up to get bigger size woofers like the famously towers rf-62 or rf-82 instead of buying

the XPA-3. But I wonder if just relying on my receiver alone will provide enough juice to power

these woofers when using it in a 5.1 movie setting.

Thanks to all you great people on this forum!

[SuBXeRo]

Realisitically your receiver should do fine. The biggest differences you will notice with an outboard amp and larger speakers is the bass foundation at lower listening volumes. The high current that is made available by the power amp is what lets this happen. When you have headroom, that will really allow you to hear everything as it should until your speakers blow without clipping. Chances are you will never ever push them that loud.

You most likely wont be able to tell a difference with new speakers on your receiver until you upgrade. Ignorance is bliss with audio. It gets to a point of where you decide this sound good off the bat or it sound terrible. If its good and you listen further, you scrutinize what you have especially when you can compare it to something else. But, the good thing is that there are many things that will sound good to you so you learn to appreciate it for what it is or move on.

Don't worrk, with either the 82's or the 62's you will be able to achieve high volumes and have everything perform. 50 watts can get you really far especially if you are chopping off the bottom end freqs like 80hz and under and sending that to a dedicated sub. There are people who listen to their la scalas or cornwalls or klipschorns with tube amps that are 5 watts a channel and that can power them to a decent volume. Also take note, tube amps vs solid state amps are two different worlds each with their own limitations so just take it for what it reads as

[Heritage_Head]

I wanna thank all you Jedi audiophile masters for the invaluable insiders information on this
topic of bigger speakers VS external amp. Seem like the verdict is out and I'm gonna have to
save up to get bigger size woofers like the famously towers rf-62 or rf-82 instead of buying
the XPA-3. But I wonder if just relying on my receiver alone will provide enough juice to power
these woofers when using it in a 5.1 movie setting.

Thanks to all you great people on this forum!

Yes you will have plenty power in a 5.1 set up but I would caution 7.1 most avrs that are rated around 100 or more a channel only will run in the 40-50watt range with 5 channels. If you add 2 more speakers they will drop way down and give you no head room. What I mean is if you’re watching a movie and it’s at a good level and running about 75% of your power you have more power when the movies demands more volume. If you add 2 channels then the same level will take 90- 95% of your power so when the movie gets louder your avr will clip and that’s when you can damage your speakers. That’s probably the best part of having a separate amp is the head room. Not only does it sound better but it’s always driving clean power. Head room is so important with movies because it’s always up and down on how loud it is. But good choice on getting speakers first you won’t be disappointed.

[shake777]

Hi el, Wondering how you made out and what you decided to purchase? Thanks, Shake

[tmassey]

Long story short, in your current situation, the best bang for your buck would be to upgrade speakers first, than start looking at amps.

As a side note though, I believe Emotiva is offering their XPA-5 for 10% off, which puts it 110$ more than the XPA-3. It's the exact same amp, but with two extra channels. It would be much more future proof for you.

[derrickdj1]

Upgrading to larger speakers and a good sub or two will give more bang for the bucks in the long run. Someone mentioned blowing speakers with an amp. My surrounds are 50 RMS and 200 peak and I have no problem using them with an external amp rated 200/400 watts into 8/4 ohms which I have pushed to reference level. With the systems speakers set to small they never really get the low frequencies that will blow anything. The front heights don't get much below 250 Hz and the surrounds don't get much below 125 Hz with the avr doing the bass management and passing on the lower frequencies to the subs.