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Review of the Emotiva Fusion 8100


Trentster5172

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Greetings all,

I figured I would give you a quick review of my Emotiva Fusion 8100. First a little history- I am a brand new Emotiva customer, but I have been watching them from a distance for a few months, reading all kinds of reviews, forum posts, etc. I currently have a hook-up to buy Denon and Marantz stuff through a dealer buddy of mine. I was giving some serious thought to the Marantz 7008 or the Denon 4520ci (the last of the Japan built receivers). Unfortunately I was turned off to the Denon mainly due to the reviews not being as favorable as the Marantz. Instead of getting a new receiver, I decided to go the cheap route and just add a new separate amp to my Yamaha RX-V2500. I had just purchased a pair of RF-7II’s to add to my RC-64II, swapping out a set of RF-82II’s. I thought I’d breathe a little fire into the front stage, so I ordered an XPA-3 Gen2 for my left, right, and center. I was super impressed with the sound of my XPA-3 using my RX-V2500 as a pre-amp for the fronts and an actual amp for my four surrounds. I was super happy, but wanted an HDMI receiver with Bluetooth. I was so impressed with the build quality of the XPA that a month later I decided to go ahead and get the Fusion with the cash from the sale of my RF-82’s.

What I like:

  • Packaged very well, and the build quality is awesome. It’s on par with the Japanese stuff and has a metal face.
  • At 25 pounds it’s a tank for such a thin receiver. In fact with my Oppo BDP-83SE stacked with it, it’s still not as tall as my XPA-3.
  • The sound is warm and detailed. My definition of “warm” is the speaker is extremely detailed, but the treble is not over-powering making it tiring to listen to. The lower bass frequencies aren’t lacking and there is a punch to the bass. That being said, don’t expect this right out of the box. When I first hooked it up it made my RF-7’s it sounded like they were right in my face. The treble was harsh and the bass was somewhat lacking. I left the Fusion on for about three days straight playing music. It now produces a warm sound and is awesome!
  • I love the fact that the HDMI stays on the last video source when you switch to music.
  • The Fusion’s Cirrus DAC’s seem to be on par with my BDP-83SE for 7.1. I have it hooked up both ways and in switching back and forth it sounds almost the same for movies in the mids and highs. There might be a little more detail using the Oppo’s DAC’s, but as far as bass, my subs sound so my better using the Fusion to do the processing through its DAC’s via HDMI. As for 2-channel CD listening there is still no comparison. The Oppo’s stacked DAC’s sound superior to me.
  • The Bluetooth sounds pretty darn good even though I have an iPhone that doesn’t have Apt-X. I’m considering the apple TV route – I would be interested on any feedback anyone has on that.

What I don’t like:

  • The room correction only fully optimizes for 5.1. It will calculate the distance of your rear surrounds, the frequency cut-off, and sound level; however, it will not do any equalizing for the 6th and 7th channels. In addition you can’t even manually use the parametric EQ for the rear surrounds. You can however go crazy with the EQ of the other five channels, and it even gives you three bands for the sub. Was this the case with the UMC-200? Do I have a setting wrong I wonder? Maybe I just don't understand how to make that work yet. That being said, the auto EQ room correction to me sounds harsh and fatiguing in the treble anyways so I'm not using it. I wasn’t a fan of the auto EQ portion of YPAO either and I always just set it as Flat which is what I did with the Fusion. Don't expect it to get the cut-off for your sub right either. I manually set it to 80hz.
  • There is a very slight hum in my front three speakers through the XPA-3 when the volume is completely down hooked to the Fusion. This was not the case with my Yamaha being used as a pre-amp. I may be a little picky though as the hum goes away when music is played even at the lowest volume setting and you literally almost have to put your ears up to the horns of the front speakers to hear any hum at all.

Any buyer’s remorse? - I have absolutely no regrets on my decision; however, I have formed an opinion that my ten year old Yamaha RX-V2500 is still a legit performer so I will be keeping it! I now have it upstairs on my Forte’s for two channel listening. At first there was a definite difference in sound between the Fusion and the Yamaha. Now after the Fusion has been on for a few days straight that sound gap has closed. The Fusion/XPA-3/RF-7II combo sounds much more detailed and has just the right amount of very tight effortless bass. In fact there is so much bass that I don’t use my subs for music at all. The Forte/Yamaha combination is not quite as detailed, but it may be because these speakers are from 1986 and have never been capped.

If you have any questions or want me to experiment further let me know. Maybe next year I will pull the trigger on Emotiva’s XMC-1, but for now I’m very pleased!

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Nice review and congrats on the new avr. Pioneer only has 3 band sub EQ which is about right in my opinion. The only time that it will be a problem is with passive sealed subs due to the roll off. I am also not on the side that EQ of the surround as being that important considering there role in HT. :)

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If you are getting feedback or have a noise floor issue with it, send it back while its new. It may not be an issue now, but when the "new" wears off and you are hearing that hum in pauses of silence in movies and audio, you might be begging for a Marantz or Denon AVR then.

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Yeah this one will do 11-bands for the right, left, center, right and left surrounds. It has no EQ for the rear surrounds (channels 6 and 7). It has a three band for the sub. What I do like is it appears that the 11 bands can be set based on the frequency range of each speaker. So if you are cutting the speakers at 80hz you get 11 bands above that with the ability to set the Q width of each of the bands (if I understand that correctly). Very cool! I'm going to get a mic and REW to start playing! Any recommendations on a mic? Radio Shack decibel meter or the MiniDSP UMK-1. I have a Sony Vaio laptop with hdmi out.

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Yeah this one will do 11-bands for the right, left, center, right and left surrounds. It has no EQ for the rear surrounds (channels 6 and 7). It has a three band for the sub. What I do like is it appears that the 11 bands can be set based on the frequency range of each speaker. So if you are cutting the speakers at 80hz you get 11 bands above that with the ability to set the Q width of each of the bands (if I understand that correctly). Very cool! I'm going to get a mic and REW to start playing! Any recommendations on a mic? Radio Shack decibel meter or the MiniDSP UMK-1. I have a Sony Vaio laptop with hdmi out.

Emos eq on the pre/avr is the best I have seen so far. Most avr eq only go down to 40 or even 60hz for the fronts. For 2ch imo that's not that great for an eq. The emo goes down to 31 for mains and other channels. And the 11band sub eq goes down to 20.
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  • 5 months later...

I've been thinking about getting an 8100 for my HT, I just worry about power.  Currently running pre/pro with a UMC-1 and a Sherwood Newcastle A-965 @100 watts/channel. Mains are K-horns, Academy center and KSP-S6 surrounds. 

 

    Any thoughts on weather the Sherwood ratings are as honest as I'm sure the Emotiva ratings are? 

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  • 4 months later...

I have the Sherbourn SR8100, same as the Emotiva SR8100... Just branded differently before they scrapped the sherbourn brand.

I really want to love it... But just can't. I ordered two of these receivers, one for a buddy of mine and one for myself. This was about a year ago.

My unit has been inoperable more often than it has functioned. Like many others, I have had severe hdmi handshake issues. It just won't work with my 2011 model Sony Bravia. I can pass 1080i through it, sometimes 720p and almost never 1080p. Have tried different hdmi cables at different lengths... No luck. The receiver works ok with my 720p panasonic plasma though. With the Sony TV, It renders my appletv useless, even at 720p. Cisco STB works at 1080i with an occasional hdcp error. PS3 doesn't work at any resolution/color settings. WiiU and ps4... No luck. I've read others have had the same issues with a variety of different models of tvs and projectors.

I also had a bad board that caused hissing/buzzing through my surround left speaker. Garbled osd was common and random glitches occurred. They shipped me a replacement board and it has resolved those problems. I haven't tried it since before I swapped that board, but it also could not process a dolby TrueHD bitstream (dts ma and lpcm are fine though)

Also had power issues with the unit not turning on at times. They shipped a replacement power supply which temporarily fixed the issue... I still have problems now and then.

I have another, updated power supply on route and Damon at Emotiva is confident it will resolve my problems. While I doubt it will fix the hdmi problems, I'm hoping it solves my power issues.

I have interchanged the receiver with a pioneer, marantz, sony and rotel products and have not had the same issues with any of those products. Too bad... I really like the sound of the sr8100, but It just is flakey with hdmi. I'm going to have to either sell it or retire it to a simple 2-channel system without a monitor.

My pal's unit... He has had power supply issues and we have swapped psu's, Emotiva shipped a replacement unit since he was still having problems, and now he's having problems turning the unit on again. Replacement psu is on route again... Hoping it resolves the problems. In the interim, we leave zone 2 on full-time since that keeps the unit "on" even when it's in standby... So at least it turns on reliably.

So... Long story longer... Great sound but be prepared for some hdmi issues and other general flakiness.. It may or may not work with your TV.

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Oh... Forgot to mention... HDMI Through the sherbourn, my black levels are... Well... Grey. not even close to black anymore.

The auto setup also has a hard time figuring out where to cross over your speakers. You'll want to review and change what it sets your speakers at. It set my crossovers at 250hz with my tower speakers... I changed that back to 80hz.

If I were to review the sherbourn, I'd have to split the review into two categories.

As an integrated amp/receiver for listening without using hdmi, I give it a 8/10. Only losing marks due to reliability issues.

As a home theatre receiver with an "incompatible" TV, it gets a 1/10. Loses almost all marks because it doesn't work!

As a home theatre receiver with a "compatible" TV, it gets a 6/10. Loses points due to reliability and killing my contrast! Blacks literally become grey.

Edited by TheIncredibleFaulk
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Glad to hear you enjoyed the Fusion 8100 Trenster. I used to own an RX-V2500 myself and just recently sold it. It served my purpose for quite a few years and never had any issues.

 

I have three Sherbourn SR-120's and absolutely love their products. The SR-120 offers 7.1 with 125wpc across the front and 75wpc for the other four channels. I had HDMI handshake issues and various levels of audio drop out for a while until I upgraded to a new platform from my provider Comcast. The new cable boxes solved all of my issues. The receivers now sound fantastic and have no handshake or drop out issues at all. I have acquired a ton of Emotiva and Sherbourn products over the last few years and it would take a lot for me to leave this brand now.

 

For TheIncredibleFaulk, I hope you can find a way to rid yourself of the problems you have encountered with the receiver. Nothing worse than investing in something and then being let down.

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I been thinking of buying this unit to replace an Onkyo for a 50/50 music/ht room. The reviews on Amazon look pretty good, 4.5 of 5. I know for  some Emo products the stars just don't align but they always worked fine for me.

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I'm deliberating on one of these models now myself. Kind of ready to move into something newer than my Carver C-1 preamp (although it's completely redone/rebuilt including remote volume control) Too bad they don't work through a rep firm or distribution...I can buy most any other product in the industry for sheet cost as I was in that field for 25 years and know most all of them. But the price range on this 8100 is about where I want to be at.

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