My Parasound A21 review and VS Emotiva XPA

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.