My Parasound A21 review and VS Emotiva XPA

XPR amps require 20A line for optimum performance

George,
This should be a generic statement and not just for Emotiva. Emotiva's target audience is different.

I don't get why people buy $6000 speakers at all. But if they do, why use a bargain brand amp? Those Tyler Acoustics go for over 7000. Why don't you save some REAL coin and buy some Crown pro amps for 500-600 a piece. What's the point? If you want to save money on the amps and got Emotiva, you should have saved money on the speakers in the first place.

I've used the cheaper Crown PA amps at shows (part of a house system) and they simply are not very good...loud maybe, but the sound quality was worse than some other QSC, Crest, and older Mackie amps I was using at the time. Pro PA amps of any sort generally don't display the tonal refinement of amps designed for home hifi, although some can come close. You get what you pay for as the more costly Crowns really do sound better.

A method to my madness .

This hobbie had me at age 14 with my first system and the tweeking started .

Many moons and systems later I finally have started to build my first real system . Speakers having the most impact on sound took Priority "Tyler D1x speakers "
Large floor standing full range speakers with looks to die for and hand built by one of the best guys in audio .Done.
You don't get this soundstage with small speakers. I can go on but enough on the speakers .

Having a great speaker lets you hear different signitures in sound that amplifiers have . As I stated in an earlier post , this has led me on a journey that unless your an audio nut most will not understand .Making them sound the way you want with what you listen too and at a volume that is to your preference .

I have tried many amps from tubes to solid state .
Crown xl 2000 were run as mono blocks and were ok but not what I wanted just to cover the previous suggestion .
Cary , Threshold , Rotel and many others were on the hot seat. All of the amps have pros and cons . Then I tried the XPR 2 . Bass that felt like my subs were on but faster and punchy . Highs and mids did take a long time to settle down . About four months of a lot of play time from casual listening to rock concert levels .I cant say the number of hours . I will say if they did not , this amp would be for sale also .

I am a hands on type of guy and have to try it for myself to feel comfortable . I felt comfortable and bought a second XPR 2 to run in a vertical Bi Amp set up .Yes another long break in process for the second amp but it is worth it . Now 2 Great looking amps with power and finesse sitting on what else , Tyler Acoustics amp stands .

To be fair in my assessment, I did not consider the Parasound A 21 amp with only 250 watts per channel .The JC1 mono block amps would be a closer match at 400 per side but I do not have a dealer within the area to allow me to try them out for 30 days . I will not give an assessment of a product if I actually did not hear it in my system . I am quite sure they are a quality product . Will these be my final amps that I buy . Hell no , I found out I like tubes and will be setting up a small tube based system on much smaller efficient speakers .

I do not mean to sound condescending . I know there a many great systems and amps to choose from but with my budget this was right for me . I loved the process and really enjoy audio .I have two friends that love this as much as I do .My other friends and family think I im crazy but love listening to my system .( Go figure ) We are all hear for the same reason , the love of audio . Keep it lite

Lambeau

I've owned a lot of Emotiva gear over the years.
Good starting point, but I've learned it has a lot to do with your ears, and how you interpret the sound.
Recently I've started to phase out my Emotiva gear, with vast improvement after each piece was replaced.
With that came a vast increase in money spent.

Settled now on Ps Audio front end and Pass Labs Amplification
YMMV...

I've had the same impressions of the Emotiva pieces I've owned, and sold off the lot of them over a year ago now. The cd player might have been the best of theirs I had sonically, but the clunky cd handling, and random freeze ups weren't worth the trouble. Their DAC had bad design, when I tried to get my iphone to play through it with a Pure i20, it was badly schrill, and the DAC was bright overall. The XPA amp was okay for $700, but I learned that what you get with 600 watts at that price point has easily identifiable limitations. Sonically, a little better than a mid range AVR, with of course more power than the AVR.

I"ve now got Parasound P7, and an A21. An Oppo 95 on music duties and Paradigm Signatures S6. Beautiful soundstage. Imaging , air, and all frequencies are just gorgeous. Special note for the vocal range, a real treat!

For a first foray into separates, Emotiva would make an upgrade, as long as your speakers aren't forward or bright sounding(Find out where your speakers are in the spectrum between bright and warm). But if you really have an ear for music or quality audio, you won't stay with Emotiva. Which makes starting out with better brands than Emotiva a smart buy in the long run since you're not buying twice.

Ok,guys this is what me and a freind did for a week end. We swapped power amps,his Parasound a21 and my Emotiva xpa - 2 gen1. He has a pair of dq30i's and I have a pair of Dq20's. When I hooked up the a21 to my system it was sounding like the music was coming out of a big pipe. It only got a small amount better over the weekend. The Emotiva xpa - 2 gen1 on his system was impressive sounding. We both have the same cables in are systems. He was using a nad m51 dac And a music fidelity m1cdt transport. Myself I'm using a Emotiva dc -1 dac and a Marantz cd600 cdp. The Emotiva xpa - 2 gen1 power amp sounds great b on my system and sounded near even sounding on his system. Basically it's a $800 amp putting out nearly  $2,500 worth of sound.

It's amazing to read some reviews of people going back and froths when one owns both Parasound and Emotiva. I own many speaker types and amps, so I easily get the different types of signature sounds from different manufacturers. I do own quite a few different amps and speaker brands. I have Parasound A21 amps, Rotel RB-1090 amps, Parasound JC-1 amps, Emotiva XPA-1 amps and Emotiva XPR-1 amps that I use in my home theater room for music and movies. In my 2-Channel room upstairs in the living room I use Emotiva XPA-1 amps for music.

I've been amazed at the performance and price of the Emotiva gear. Most people do not know it but Emotiva makes many brands out there under their OEM/ODM. The list would surprise you who they make amps for, this includes Parasound. The Parasound are bias more towards warm side as the Emotiva's are more towards neutral. Both does a fine job of detail and sound quality. The internal Emotiva builds are built quite well and a little more so than the Parasound for equivalent model. I find that I listen to my Emotiva XPA-1 more than I do my Parasound A-21, the A-21 is a little warmer sounding but I like the XPA-1 that it's neutral and the little extra resolution it gives to detail. I also like my Emotiva XPR-1 more than my Parasound JC-1. The build quality on the Emotiva XPR-1 certainly out does the Parasound JC-1 by far and sounds outstanding in all areas that meet or surpass the Parasound JC-1 for far less the price, that is always a great achievement.

We live in an era of today's times that many manufacturer far exceed asking price than what is fair. Many people just don't get this. We no longer live in era that you get what you pay for, now days it's for highest possible profits at the lowest cost, this mean over-charging the end user. I once brought this up to the attention of a well known brand that we were doing some consulting work with and I asked the owner why he changed many times more than even the build quality of his amps, they were cheap compared to the prices they charged. He turned red and told me it doesn't matter what they charge, they can charge what ever they want and breaking no laws and they offer utmost customer service, two days later he had me fired off the team.

Emotiva offers some great equipment and especially for the price. I think it's great in an era where it's the opposite and many people are far over-paying for what they really get. We all should be applauding Emotiva for this!!!

There is not a night and day difference or knock your socks-off in Emotiva vs. Parasound like some folks post. To me it's being overly dramatic of some sort. They are near the same league but I would give the nod more towards Emotiva because I like the more neutral side to sound than Parasound's warmer side but both sound very nice. My Parasound JC-1 have been repaired twice so are from problems.... yes Parasound was great about fixing them and addressed the problems they had along the way but seems to have fixed them now. I haven't had any problems with my Emotiva equipment yet so far but I hear Emotiva has been great as well taking care of it's customers. Emotiva is now being made here in the USA and I think it's great how Emotiva is giving quality at a fair price and jobs back to the USA.

I'll never understand how some like to condemn a great company like Emotiva who is just trying to offer fair prices with great quality products like it used to be before the now mass majority over charges for quality audio products.
Great job Emotiva, keep the great work up!!! Emotiva is now sold in brick and mortar local stores in your area.

I'm very happy with Emotiva compared to my Parasound!!!

Well, you're all over the board and appear to have at least 10 amps, unless you are incorrectly pluralizing the word amp.  At any rate all one can do is listen to their system and pick the one that sounds better to them.

And to me, in the exact same room, with the same system, the same music, the exact same volume level, the same cables and the same $6000 speakers, the A21 was clearly superior to the Emotiva amp.  I would have sent back the A21 had I not been satisfied, why spend a big chunk of money for no improvement?  

And when one realizes that Emotiva is way over hyping their products and being dishonest to say the least, I can certainly understand why some criticize them.  

That is what's great about different choices, we pick what sound best to our ears.  It's great you found the sound you like.

I am hoping soon that our distributor will carry Emotiva, as one local A/V a few blocks from us now carries Emotiva.  The distributor tells us they will soon and our plan is to set up Emotiva among the rest of our amps and let our customers hear for their own ears and decide.  This will be fun.

We are about to see great things for Emotiva's future! 

Okay, that explains it, you are a dealer hyping Emotiva.   Well, I hope you get a good profit margin out of them.

No runnin, I am not an Emotiva dealer, how you come to that conclusion after I told you our distributor does not carry Emotiva, not yet anyway but we are hoping to become an Emotiva dealer for their fine products.  I see you all over the forums sharing your dislike for Emotiva but I for one do not see it the way you do.  Sorry your experience has been different than my own. It's great you have found the equipment that works for you!  Enjoy!

In going back and re-reading you comment, it is clear that whatever meaning you were trying to convey was muddled in regards to you "distributor" vs your "local A/V", but whatever.  Since you are hoping to become an Emotiva dealer, one must assume that you are a dealer/retailer or work for one. And you are excited about Emotiva.  Again, I hope you get a good margin out of them.

I'm still puzzled at your comments on how many different amps you own, or have owned?  I guess you were comparing the Emotiva to your old amps by memory?  Either way, good for you on finding something else that you like, as me I suspect you'll see that the emperor has no clothes within two years.  Unlike you I suppose, the Emotiva amp I purchased was my second audio amp ever.  It didn't sound any better than an entry level Adcom amp I had, but it went louder.

Having owned both Parasound and currently owning Emotiva XPR-1s.....I am very satisfied in my decision to move there.   In fact, there is a very well known audio reviewer who swapped out his JC-1s to move to XPR-1s and said that for a fraction of the price he gets as good of sound compared to the $5k JC-1s at a price of $1750(XPR-1 new price).......

Well that's great, except Emotiva did their usual behaviour and retired the XPR line some years ago now.  No one can buy them.  They've done this with line after line, amp after amp and product after product.

Why would they retire the XPR line.  Any ideas?

" Well that's great, except Emotiva did their usual behaviour and retired the XPR line some years ago now.  No one can buy them.  They've done this with line after line, amp after amp and product after product. "
You are so right! 

Auxinput is correct.....they were getting killed on shipping and when folks would sell them, they wouldn't ship them correctly and they would get damaged......

brownsugar_ny - I had wanted and bought some gear from a smaller manufactured of audio gear from stellar word of mouth reputation. The gear turned out to be terrible and the owner was an awful guy to do business with. I now have a Parasound A21 that I think is great. I think John Curl gets much of the credit for being a good engineer/designer. What I learned from the long experience is this: "don’t believe all the hype about any brand or product". Often you get what you pay for and often people learn by buying much more gear than I could ever afford. I only will knock a brand if it has defects, made with inferior design or parts and sold as high-fidelity audio at high prices AND the brand owner lies about the product or does not stand behind the quality.

Here’s the thing about Emotiva. Just look at the situation with the XPR line. Any basic market research would raise red flags for a company trying to decide if they should manufacture an amp line weighing so much. Research would tell them that the logistics of shipping would be a nightmare. Damage during shipping would go way up. Shipping to other countries would be cost prohibitive.

There is a very good reason why no other amp manufacturer has amps with such high weight( maybe Mcintosh and one or two others). But Emotiva goes ahead and makes these amps and then has to cancel the line. Its just another of their bonehead moves. Nobody needs 600+ watts per channel in a home. Maybe .001% of audiophiles could actually make use of 600 watts.

Emotiva themselves recommended to customers that they use a cheater plug to connect these amps to power, because "you’ll never actually need 20 amps". My point when I heard this was if you’ll never need more than 15 amps, then you’ll never be using 600 watts, which is what they were telling you without admitting it.

If this design sounded so good, all they had to do was make it in a 250 - 400 wpc amp. When listening to music, if you are getting 95 decibels at your seating position(which is VERY loud) and your speakers are 89 db efficient(about average) then you are using maybe 10 watts, depending how far away you are from the speakers. With peaks of maybe 60 watts. Thats it folks. They made an amp that was purely for bragging rights.

I had to laugh at people's criticism of auditioning systems at shows. Here's why: I was bouncing from room to room at a fairly good show. Stuck in traffic in range of a system I really had already heard far too much of - with an unmistakable muddy swamp water crossed with sewage vibe. Turned around to make a getaway,  but it was toooo late - stuck in traffic. The salesperson saw me. She gushed on through her presentation, making a big deal about the mystery speakers. When she ground to a halt with "I'll bet you can't guess what's behind the speaker screens!" Trapped. I managed to grind out:" They sound like Bose - something I'd never have in the house.". Undeterred: (lifting the screen) "You're right! Ta daa! It's our new line of 5.1 surround speakers" (My apologies to Bose fans.)