Parasound A23+ vs. Emotiva XPA-DR2

The Parasound is in a much higher league than the Emotiva.  I had an Emotiva XDA1 dac years ago.  Cold, bright and brittle are the words that come to mind.  There really is no comparison between the 2 brands.

Without a doubt go for the Parasound for all the reasons you mentioned. Plus, it is a high current amp with a large transformer and high damping factor. High current, not watts, will drive the speakers with power and authority. 
The Paradigm Tributes, tested by Stereophile, are 92dB efficient and have an impedance which drops below 4 ohms in the lower midrange, which shouldn't affect performance. The rest of the frequency spectrum presents an easy to drive load. 
An excerpt...
"This is a speaker that plays loudly with very few watts."

The Parasound and the Tributes are very well matched. Raw power measured in watts will not provide optimum performance with these speakers.

I’ve owned Paradigm Speakers (both the Studio and Signature line), Parasound amps (A21 and A51), and Emotiva amps (XPA2, XPA3).  I had listener’s fatigue with Emotiva and Paradigm.  Not so, with Parasound.

My all time worst sounding amp was an Emotiva XP whatever, circa ten years ago.  The sound of nails across a chalk board comes to mind.  It actually sounded like the designer/maker/seller's intent was to make the worst sounding amp possible without instantly breaking the speakers.


#2: About 2 weeks ago via email I asked Emotiva for the input and output impedance of their best preamp (which I'm happy to report is the audiophile equivalent, looks-wise, of a bright metallic purple or orange '59 Chevy low rider with air jump suspension and no hood, IOW a stinkin' POS).  No reply.  They list 1000 specs but won't answer this critical Q.  

Then there's this Emotiva website marketing: upon opening the home page, a huge ad is plastered, inviting visitors to "ENTER OUR SWEEPSTAKE TO WIN $500!!!"  To proceed, visitors must answer, "SIGN ME UP!" or "NO I DON'T NEED $500."  


If there's a reason to support Emotiva I have yet to find one.   

Emotiva is low mid-fi pretending to be high end. Those that own them and believe they are high end either have never really heard even a modest high end system, or need their ears cleaned.