MEASUREMENTS: Emotiva XPA-1L (Gen 1) Class AB Balanced Monoblock

Let's continue measuring some amplifiers I have here at home. Today, we're going to get a bit more serious with fidelity into the "audiophile" level. Of course I'm using the term "audiophile" here for fun since audiophilia often does not equate with high-fidelity; but who else uses monoblock amps at home except for audiophiles!?

Here's a single 35lb Emotiva XPA-1L "Gen 1" monoblock which I bought back in 2013, a few months after it was released. Far from the most expensive monoblock amplifier out there, costing a "mere" MSRP US$699 each:

This is one of two I have in use as my reference amplifier for many years now. There's not much to see on the rear - speaker outputs, both RCA and XLR inputs (toggle switch to select), IEC power connector, 12V in/out trigger (can daisy chain a few devices) and main power switch. In the front, we have the large round Emotiva switch to turn on from sleep mode, a single LED that turns red when running diagnostics or if there's a fault, and blue as above when fully on. Notice that there is a switch just above the etched serial number to set it to either "standard" Class AB mode or the special Class A high bias mode which is a selling point for this amp that we'll of course talk about. When the switch is toggled to "A", it operates at Class A for up to the first 35W into 8Ω.

Over the years, I have seen a couple of (p)reviews from Audioholics and The Poor Audiophile, but have not seen any independent measurements of the output quality.

From late 2014 until they discontinued this model (not sure when), Emotiva also made the "Gen 2" model which cosmetically looked slightly different with black instead of silver side trims. I believe internally they also made some changes which were more about cost-cutting than affecting the sound quality.

MEASUREMENTS: Onkyo TX-NR1009 "WRAT" AV Receiver Class AB Amplifier... Plus Pi / LP / Resolution miscellany.

I currently have 3 AV receivers here at home. The Denon AVR-3802 is my oldest machine, purchased back in 2001 and being used in the living room for stereo playback. My newer Yamaha RX-V781 (2016) is currently in use for movie playback with Atmos/dts:X decoding. This leaves the Onkyo TX-NR1009 (2011 model) that I bought used in 2013 which has actually been sitting unused for the last few years mainly because it's an older HDMI 1.4 device which did not support full 4K/HDR/60fps switching:

It's a shame because I think of the 3 receivers, subjectively this is probably the best sounding (no blind test done, just a suspicion), has the highest power rating (135W into 8Ω, 1kHz, 1%), THX Select2 Plus certified, can amplify 9 channels (9.2 decoding), and when new, was also the most expensive of the three. I'm sure at some point I'll find a use for this 41 pound monster - maybe if/when the old Denon breaks down :-).

I don't think anyone can fault the external build quality which also looks quite handsome. Onkyo did unfortunately have some electronics failure issues with this generation of receivers however and back around 2016, I sent this unit back to them for an HDMI board replacement (here's a thread on the issue a few years back).

For this post, I think it would be interesting to explore the sound quality of this device as a 2-channel amplifier (especially compared to the little Yeeco TI TPA3116 amp last week). It'll give us an idea of how well a good receiver could perform and give us a peek at a modern Class AB device sitting in the higher end of the consumer price ladder (Class AB receiver amplifier designs have not changed that much in the last number of years). These days a similar tier THX model with equivalent power would be the newer Onkyo TX-NR1030 and TX-RZ1100.