Emotiva, the $1000 Stereo, and the $500 stereo
I stumbled upon this a couple weeks ago, but needed to get my big "Hi-Fi 101" post written first or this wouldn't have made any sense.
So I was following up on a namedrop on one of my most frequent audiophile hangouts about an internet stereo electronics company, Emotiva.
Their stuff seems to be quite good. Quality components, realistic power ratings, nice looking, etc. Although sadly, recently when I was asked to recommend some stereo equipment to somebody looking to put together a $1000 system (a nice sweet spot), they didn't have a ~$400 integrated amplifier or receiver for me to recommend, they did have this neat little thing, the BPA-1.
Although I haven't heard it and can't comment definitively, this seems to be an absolutely wonderful project.
You see, the nice thing about stereo components is that, since they're reasonably modular, you can buy a system in bits and pieces, particularly if you start with used or just plain cheap gear to make your initial system, and then upgrade it a piece at a time.
The problem is that if you buy gear that's, say, cheap enough to put together a $500 system, you end up with crap that you're going to throw out, or if you put together a $1000 system and want to expand, you may end up wasting a decent thing.
Let's look at how this little guy, the BPA-1 (shame they didn't give it a cute little name to go with its appearance), avoids that problem.
You want a cheap system. We'll ignore the question of a source; everybody has an iPod, a DVD player, or a computer. Worst comes to worst, you go buy that $30 portable CD player from Wal-Mart; it'll get the job done. It's the least important part of the chain because it's the easiest to do passably.
You buy a cheap but good set of speakers, say, the PSB Alpha B1, carried by my wonderful dealer and recently glowingly reviewed in Stereophile.
They're $279; we'll round up to $300. That leaves us with $200 left in the budget. To get a decent stereo amp that will last you, you could get, say, an NAD C320BEE ($400) or a Cambridge Audio Azur 540A ($500). Either way you're over budget.
Or you could buy the Emotiva, for $180. It's a stereo integrated amp. So that plus speakers plus a source, and you have a system for $460. You're $40 underbudget, which is enough to cover tax, shipping, cables, something along that line.
Now you sacrifice a few things. There's no remote control. It only takes one source. In this age of mp3 players, for a stereo that exists purely to play music, you only need one source. And get up off the couch to change the volume; it'll do you good not to be so lazy. Or get a source with volume control (again, mp3 player, with a really long set of interconnects or a remote control).
Maybe you want more power. You can buy a new integrated amp or receiver, and this little amp could find a nice home in a second system, or biamp your speakers (sepparate amplifier channels for low and high frequency drivers). Or add a passive subwoofer and use this to drive it; it has a built-in low pass filter!
Or just buy a preamp, and use two of these things to drive your speakers. You can run them as monoblock amps (two mono amps), or use four channels of amplification to biamp your speakers.
So in summary, one tremendously flexible piece of gear that is a:
So. Cool.
So I was following up on a namedrop on one of my most frequent audiophile hangouts about an internet stereo electronics company, Emotiva.
Their stuff seems to be quite good. Quality components, realistic power ratings, nice looking, etc. Although sadly, recently when I was asked to recommend some stereo equipment to somebody looking to put together a $1000 system (a nice sweet spot), they didn't have a ~$400 integrated amplifier or receiver for me to recommend, they did have this neat little thing, the BPA-1.
Although I haven't heard it and can't comment definitively, this seems to be an absolutely wonderful project.
You see, the nice thing about stereo components is that, since they're reasonably modular, you can buy a system in bits and pieces, particularly if you start with used or just plain cheap gear to make your initial system, and then upgrade it a piece at a time.
The problem is that if you buy gear that's, say, cheap enough to put together a $500 system, you end up with crap that you're going to throw out, or if you put together a $1000 system and want to expand, you may end up wasting a decent thing.
Let's look at how this little guy, the BPA-1 (shame they didn't give it a cute little name to go with its appearance), avoids that problem.
You want a cheap system. We'll ignore the question of a source; everybody has an iPod, a DVD player, or a computer. Worst comes to worst, you go buy that $30 portable CD player from Wal-Mart; it'll get the job done. It's the least important part of the chain because it's the easiest to do passably.
You buy a cheap but good set of speakers, say, the PSB Alpha B1, carried by my wonderful dealer and recently glowingly reviewed in Stereophile.
They're $279; we'll round up to $300. That leaves us with $200 left in the budget. To get a decent stereo amp that will last you, you could get, say, an NAD C320BEE ($400) or a Cambridge Audio Azur 540A ($500). Either way you're over budget.
Or you could buy the Emotiva, for $180. It's a stereo integrated amp. So that plus speakers plus a source, and you have a system for $460. You're $40 underbudget, which is enough to cover tax, shipping, cables, something along that line.
Now you sacrifice a few things. There's no remote control. It only takes one source. In this age of mp3 players, for a stereo that exists purely to play music, you only need one source. And get up off the couch to change the volume; it'll do you good not to be so lazy. Or get a source with volume control (again, mp3 player, with a really long set of interconnects or a remote control).
Maybe you want more power. You can buy a new integrated amp or receiver, and this little amp could find a nice home in a second system, or biamp your speakers (sepparate amplifier channels for low and high frequency drivers). Or add a passive subwoofer and use this to drive it; it has a built-in low pass filter!
Or just buy a preamp, and use two of these things to drive your speakers. You can run them as monoblock amps (two mono amps), or use four channels of amplification to biamp your speakers.
So in summary, one tremendously flexible piece of gear that is a:
- Stereo integrated amp
- Stereo power amp (with adjustable gain)
- Monoblock power amp
- Subwoofer amp
So. Cool.
Labels: hi-fi, music, technology
posted by L. Maxwell Ward at 7:31 PM
