emotiva mono block amps any good?

Fear? Hardly. Emotiva makes budget amps and crappy processors. I've owned 3 of their products, and couldn't understand why I'd get listener fatigue with an amp, preamp and cd player all from emotiva. Finally I tried an old Denon theater receiver, and was shocked that it sounded on par with the Emotiva gear, but warmer. That started me on my journey to realize that all amps do not sound the same as is popular among the Emotiva fanbois.

That said, they are a decent step up from most receivers, but you can do a lot better. They are decent for the money spent, but that's really not saying much.

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Runnin...well, that's ONE man's opinion.

Do an Emotiva search on the Members Systems section here on
Audiogon and you will find satisfied members pairing Emotiva
successfully with respected names like Audio Research,
Wilson, Pass Labs, Zu, Revel, Von Schweikert, Magnepan,
Tekton, Rel Acoustics, Martin Logan, Rega, Sumiko, Thiel,
Anthem, B&W, JM Labs and several more. The proof is in
successful systems right here on Audiogon.
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I have Emotiva mono-blocks (XPA-1L) and a pre-amp (XSP-1). For the price, it has slightly exceeded my expectations. I listen to them in my home office where I stream music via spotify at 320 kbps. If I had a home theater system I would think that they would be fine. I would not, and do not, use them in my two channel vinyl system for critical listening, however. I did try them with my Vandersteen Treos with the San Francisco Symphony's 180g pressing of Gustav Mahler's 7th Symphony. Too me the sound was not accurate. Also when listening to rock, for example the Foo Fighter's Pretender, I found the bass speed to be a tad slow.

Call it what you will. We've covered this ground before in the "Emotiva Challenge" thread. Like Archie from the Lounge forum my concerns regarding their manufacture remain.

http://emotivalounge.proboards.com/thread/33613/emotiva-manufacturing-practices

By the way, when I first read that locked thread the moniker, "Seeker Of Truth," was not present under the original posters name. I have to assume that only a moderator would be able to make such an edit. This company just can't help itself from bringin' it on.

M-db: Thank you for directing me to the other thread. I am not an engineer and cannot comment on the internal build quality and associated materials. I did find the external build quality to be okay (not great). I don't share your view that this is because of the place of manufacturing, and I also gave up on ideology of place of manufacturing decades ago. For example my cheap Yamaha A/V receiver (purchased at Fryes) for my television was assembled in China and is superior in overall external build quality. Rather I look directly to Emotiva and their internal quality control procedures and product procurement/sourcing program for consciously producing this level of product quality. My overall assessment is that Emotiva is building an inexpensive component which produces sound quality just above the offerings at the big box retailers. For my $500 I got a 250W single channel amplifier. Others, including you, may disagree but I think it is great for listening to compressed digital music. It is not mid-fi (e.g., Krell) but it does fulfill a purpose.