emotiva mono block amps any good?

You know, Mitch. As I said above, I was just trying make sure that the OP realized that there were alternatives on the used market.

Besides, other than the amps mentioned above, there was also a Krell and a Belles, each of which was rated at 250wpc at 8 ohms, doubling that into 4. I'm sure that your Kappas would not have made either of those cry for their mamas. From a practical perspective, I doubt that there's a hole lot of difference between a 250wpc amp and a 500 wpc amp. I will concede that the larger amp would provide more headroom, but the question of whether that much headroom would be needed still remains.

Personally, I'd grab either the Krell or the Belles before the Emotivas at the same price.

What I find most odd is that you are making an argument for a product that you have NO experience with. It seems that you are basing your argument on what is written on paper and taking the watts=quality approach.

I have heard amps in the XPA line and based on the experience and for the same money, I'd take the Belles all day long.

Many also tout the 30 money back guarantee and free shipping. That is all fine and dandy and I commend Emotiva for having such a policy; although having that policy makes sense, since they are a direct seller and it's the only way that they can get people to audition their products.

What some may not realize on the back end is that the return doesn't include free shipping. If the OP buys the XPA-1s and decides that he doesn't like them, he has to pay for shipping about 150lbs of amp back to Emotiva and that isn't going to be cheap.

Tony
"I have heard amps in the XPA line and based on the experience and for the same money, I'd take the Belles all day long."

Totally; XPA is not in the same league as amps mentioned above. But any info on the XPR Reference line? Is it a redesigned amp?

It looks like the XPR line may be a totally different animal. I'd like to know more myself.

The only things that strike me as POSSIBLE areas of concern are that the power doesn't double when going from 8 ohms to 4 ohms, which is something that most amps with "testicular fortitude" do. Still, I don't know that it makes much difference when talking about a whopper of an amp like that.

The other thing that bug me a bit is that the specs listed on their website says that 4 ohms is the minimum recommended load. On the other hand, another Agoner did contact Emotiva and asked them about this and Emotiva's response was that the amp would handle a load lower than 4 ohms without problems. If this is the case, Emotiva really needs to update their web site because this could leave prospective buyers believing that the XPR amps are capable of less than they truly are.

thanks Tony for ur insight. As far as doubling power from 8/4 ohms, there are other high power amps that come close to that spec and provide high current, so I agree with you.
Yeah, not much info on these amps, but what I find so funny about the Emotiva website is read how many times they use the term "audiophile" in their descriptions of their products.

Funny. Mitch, I'm sorry your speakers make both people and intimate objects cry. That doesn't sound very nice at all. And calling my preference regarding amps "laughable" isn't very nice either. I know you're into your hungry, inefficient speakers. And I know you rightly appreciate your full loom of Pass power plants. That's cool. I get it. But assuming that everyone is running absurdly inefficient speakers and that anything churning out less than 500 wpc is a toy just makes you sound willfully ignorant. Or congenitally stupid. And strangely proud about it, in the process. I know none of those things are true. At all. So let's take the rhetoric down a notch.

I would absolutely prefer 50 wpc of class A, high current refinement -- and the Plinius is exceptional, as would be, for example, a Pass Aleph -- to any 150lb, 500-1,000 wpc monster, Emotiva or otherwise. In fact, I think the reflex for bigger, hotter, more is a little silly, at best, and likely just the tail end of a particularly insidious marketing push over the past couple decades (which has been written about here, by myself and others, over the years).

I'm not saying you're wrong. At all. I'd love to hear your setup. But let's all agree not to pretend there only one side to this story. We have no idea what the OP was even talking about, what he might want to feed with it, or anything. Yet the rhetoric has polarized around the old and hackneyed false dichotomy of crushing, hungry more v. inferior little toys. Come on. We all know better.