The Emotiva XPA HC1 monoblock amplifier offers exceptional power and transparency at a highly competitive price point, challenging the notion that high-end amplification requires exorbitant costs. It provides the control and dynamic range necessary to unlock a speaker's full potential, regardless of listening volume.
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a lot of reviewers myself included often
talk about how a speaker needs more
power to sound its best and i get why
this may not only cause confusion but
also frustration i mean just try
searching for more powerful amplifiers
and you're quickly going to discover
that with more power you have to spend
more money
can the emotiva xpa hc1 however buck
this trend and for the vast majority of
you be the last amplifier you'll ever
[Music]
the xba-hc-1 is one of emotiva's new-ish
xpa amplifier modules resting in its own
smaller chassis rated at 300 watts into
8 ohms and 600 watts into four the
xp-hc-1 is a hybrid of sorts it is a
discrete dual differential amp that
utilizes a class a b amplifier section
mated to a class h power supply for
better efficiency while still preserving
the sound quality most listeners
associate with class a b designs you can
connect it to your stereo preamp home
theater processor or home theater
receivers preamp outputs using either a
balanced or unbalanced connection power
remains the same regardless of your
connection though you will enjoy a
better signal-to-noise ratio when using
a balanced connection now the hc-1 is an
all-black affair with emotiva's
trademark metal rails running top to
bottom along the outer edges all of the
indicator lights which include the large
standby power button globe blue in
typical emotiva fashion though they can
be defeated while the amp itself has a
relatively compact footprint it's still
quite beefy visually though it's not too
heavy at only 21 pounds around back
you're gonna find a robust pair of
binding posts as well as the amp's
balanced and unbalanced inputs which are
selectable via a small toggle switch
throw in a couple of trigger ports and a
removable power cord and you have the hc
one's physical appearance all summed up
now setup is pretty straightforward
because the hc1 is a true monorail
amplifier you're going to need one amp
per speaker so we use two in order to
power the new polk audio r700 towers
because i didn't want to do away with
say modern conveniences like hdmi
connectivity i opted to use the marantz
8015 av receiver as a preamp now you can
put the 8015 into a strict preamp mode
which i did for this review as well as
running it exclusively in its pure
direct mode to further cut down on the
possibility for sonic contamination now
the first thing i like to do when
listening to a truly powerful amplifier
is turn the sound down stick with me
while an amp with as much juice as the
hc-1 can no doubt make a speaker shine
the point of power is less about volume
and more about control and i'm talking
absolute control so while it may be
tempting to get a powerful amp such as
the hc-1 and turn everything to 11 that
may be missing the larger point so let's
break it down a good amp is not going to
give you more bass more mid-range or
higher highs an amplifier cannot inject
or create sound out of thin air that
isn't already present in the signal it
can only amplify what it's given and as
a result if you are experiencing more of
something the amp is simply giving your
speakers the requisite tools to perform
at their best meaning if you're getting
more of any one aspect of a speaker's
performance for example higher highs or
richer bass it's because the amp is
unlocking more of the speaker's inherent
potential so at any volume with a
quality amplifier i'm talking one that
isn't introducing distortion you should
be treated to the same amount of detail
intelligibility tone and separation the
only thing that should change is the scale
scale
so at lower volumes i'm talking between
35 and 50 db the emotiva positively
sings i mean within a few seconds of
hitting play it was obvious what copious
amounts of power on tap brings to the
performance typically with lower watt or
less capable amplifiers there is this
threshold you have to cross before the
amp and speakers seem to get on the same
page sometimes that threshold can be
well a certain volume level which for some
some
may be too loud for everyday listening
in my experience the polk reserve
speakers have been the type of speaker
that require a bit more from an
amplifier even a good one which is why i
have concluded a lot of my remarks about
the reserves series with make sure you
have a good powerful amp and the emotiva
fits the bill at volumes hovering around
50 db and playing the track seville off
the mission impossible 2 soundtrack i
was treated to the same 3-dimensional
and holographic presentation i know many
speakers are capable of when listening
back at higher volumes only i was
hearing it in all of its full glory at
background listening levels and when i
say full glory i mean the sound stage
was vast and well appointed with the
dancers footsteps traveling front to
back and left to right with absolute
precision more impressive still was the
fact that the various points of impact
were bang on sure if i turned things up
i was treated to a more palpable weight
with each heel-to-toe strike but with
respect to detail and absolute
separation it was 100
present regardless of my volume and this
was true of every track i queued up
whether it was a live track like tori
amos's cornflake girl from live in
kansas or something a bit harder like
corn's freak on a leash the emotiva just
never failed in allowing the polk towers
to flex their true skills with respect
to conveying the scale detail and
dynamics of a performance at any volume
sticking with freak on a leash which
admittedly is not the best quality
recording and setting the volume to stun
the emotiva proved to be unflappable i
could detect zero strain zero distortion
zero well anything it all scaled as i
dialed the volume up and down even
listening at levels i typically do not
enjoy i'm talking peaks well above the
mid 90s the hc-1 never struggled hell to
put it in human terms it was strolling
so if you've made it this far and you're
thinking to yourself well is the amp
warm or cool bass heavy lean or any of
the other usual reviewer speak the
emotiva is none of these things i do not
believe this amp has a sound of its own
and between my subjective tests and the
amplifiers specs it would appear that
the designers at emotiva have gone to
some length to ensure that this is the
case so no the amp isn't forward or
fatiguing it isn't warm or chocolaty nor
is it bass rich or worse bloated if
anything the emotiva has given me an
even greater appreciation for what the
polk r700 can really do
i struggled with this review because
there isn't any overt anything happening
because of the emotiva going off the
various measurements assuming you trust
emotiva they are arguably better than
some top tier amps from the likes of
mark levinson honestly i had to look up
the spec sheet of one of my all-time
favorite amplifiers the krell evo 402e
to find an amplifier that just outright
bested the emotiva while i certainly
don't listen to specs when faced with
sound that is well this seemingly
transparent to the source you have to
wade into some deeper waters to help
illustrate your point as far as sound
goes there's absolutely nothing that i
have found objectionable about the hc1
and while i love the idea of monoblocks
i am reminded why i prefer integrated
amplifiers over separate components with
separate amps i lose more physical and
visual space and i just hate that i
would love to have seen the amps made
smaller perhaps by reconfiguring the
modules orientation within the chassis
but i understand that emotiva is
probably configuring them this way for
economic reasons both their own and for
their customers wallets as i've said in
the past i think emotive is due for a
style change their trademark look has
grown a bit stale keeping things the
same may be another way that they've
kept costs down but at some point you
gotta stop being a tight ass as far as
comparisons go it cannot be overstated
just how much you are getting for your
money i mean i don't even have to try
and find examples of products that will
run you much much more while providing
you with little if any appreciable
differences apart from maybe say build
quality and or style for example the
parasound halo jc one plus will run you
almost 17 000 a pair and for that you're
getting a bit more power but that's
really it because the rest of the amp
spec apart from the amplifiers class
aren't that different now i have not
heard the jc oneplus but i have spent
time with the previous generation and
going off memory which admittedly is short
short
nothing jumped out at me during my
emotiva evaluation that made me think oh
remember the jc ones now looking for
more apples to apples comparison there
is the xtz edge a2400 which is
admittedly a stereo amp that can be
turned into a mono one producing similar
power to that of the emotiva though it
uses a slightly different class d
amplifier design pitted head to head the
xtz amps definitely had more gain out of
the box which meant i had to turn the
marantz down in order to level match the
two for a proper comparison but once i
did that the xtz was noisier exhibiting
hiss from the polk's tweeter that was
audible at my listening position during
quiet passages the imotiva on the other
hand was stone cold silent i also felt
as if the separation between instruments
and the sound stage scale was just a tad
more reserved and linear or
two-dimensional with the xtz both amps
sounded good tonally the xtz wasn't
leaner or warmer per se just that the
notes and or instruments weren't as
clearly defined as they were with the
emotiva so if it were me i'd go with the
hc-1 considering a pair of xtz's will
run you more than a pair of hc ones the
choice is made even easier now compared
to the best bang for the buck amp that i
know of the crown xls drive core 2
specifically the 1002 here's where
things get interesting straight up a
pair of 1002s will run you 770. which is
substantially less than the hc-1 in
their mono configuration the 1002 turns
out 700 watts which is more than double
that of the hc-1 in reality a single
1002 or a 1502 at 499 is a better
head-to-head in terms of power but let's
focus on the 1002. the 1002 like the xtz
is noisier meaning hiss is audible
unless you dial back the gain but even
at 12 o'clock you can still hear it now
i can live with that given how much raw
performance you're getting from such a
cheap amp but i understand that hiss can
be a deal breaker but his aside there is
very little separating these two
products sonically in fact they sound
more similar than different which i
consider to be a good thing now you're
free to disagree with me but don't
forget that the drive core design is so
good even harmon crown's parent company
thought to include variations of it in
their blue chip products from the likes
of lexicon and mark levinson albeit with
a more audiophile appropriate price tag
so if i wanted to ball out on a budget
the crown is still unbeaten but if you
want to ensure that you are getting the
better overall amp in terms of things
you maybe cannot outright hear or
perceive that easily the emotiva hc1 is
the only other amp this reviewer would
consider unless of course you want to
sell me a krell evo402e on the cheap we
don't do a lot of standalone amplifier
reviews on this channel because when
only evaluating power it can be hard
either an amp is doing what it has been
designed to do
or it's not if it's doing anything else
then only you can decide if you like its
character which is kind of a fancy way
of saying you like its style of
distortion which is completely fine
as for the xpa hc-1 it is a great honest
amplifier that among its audiophile
peers is a bonafide bargain in an amp i
would at a minimum audition before
parking more money elsewhere for what
could amount to
marginal if any appreciable gains in
sound quality so that's it that is now
my review of the emotiva xpa hc1
monoblock but now it's time to find out
what chris even thought of it oh god you
know these types of products are so hard
for me and to be honest i think when it
comes it just comes down to
did it work
yes or no yeah
it did okay that's it thanks for
watching i mean really
this review could have been about two
minutes and i'm sure we'll hear hear
that uh you know echoed in the comments
but sure um i i don't know i still
prefer integrated amps over separates i mean
mean
i'm with you there
but i can see you know how in some
situations these would come in really
handy if you've got a pair of speakers that
that
just aren't quite cutting it with maybe
whatever you have in your system yeah
yeah um
i would oh
go ahead i was gonna say it would be a great
great
less expensive way if you have more
expensive speakers and you're curious
like is there more to be rung out of
them rather than throw the baby out with
the bath water i mean there is in-home
trials with emotive and a lot of other
brands that make amplifiers as well but
this would be a really kind of
inexpensive or more affordable way than
buying a whole new system to find out if
you are feeding your speakers the
absolute best power they need
i mean speaking of for affordability i
think that
their price point makes it
just damn near impossible to ignore them
i can't really come up with any reason
why you would want to spend more than
this i mean unless you're just
straight up care only about
style and or you know maybe you want to
support a specific brand because you
know you're just entrenched and
yeah in their story or their ecosystem yeah
yeah
in terms of sound quality i i mean every
word of what i of what i said in this
review i think that you would have to
spend ridiculous sums of money to
to
get an appreciable difference in say
sound quality or performance over
something like this
and when i say ridiculous sums of money
i mean the jc ones at 17 grand uh my old
krell evo 402e was 14 and a half
thousand dollars
or was it 16 i don't even remember
that's insane yeah that's a lot that's insane
insane
um and even when krell
made an amp i think was called the 275
evo275 same form factor same kind of
long compact and they made it um for
people to use for like surround channels
when they were starting to expand and
get height channels this was several
years ago
even that amp
uh which i believe was 275 watts per
channel so a little bit less than this one
one
was like
affordable for krell but it was like six
grand each six grand you know and it's
like i don't believe that that amp when
new was better than this and i had it i
don't believe that it was better now
again i'm going off memory but
yeah i just you have to really really
want to spend the money
i think to walk away and be like that
other amp is better
this maybe this will help people
understand where something like this is
going to fit best in their system or
when do you really need to start looking
for a separate amplifier
i do can you talk about that a little
bit because eve i mean i know you say
well you need more power which
which is
is
kind of an open-ended statement like
yeah what does that really mean the way
that i look at it and
apologies to any
uh electrical engineers out there in our
comments who are like well he's kind of right
right
think of an amplifier like torque on a car
car
not horsepower torque
and when you have a car that is low in
torque and you're driving along
and maybe you're going 30 and you
suddenly need to get to 60
and you step on the gas and the car
doesn't go anywhere
because it has low torque it doesn't
have that pull and so if you're in a
manual car sometimes you have to like
shift down if you're in an automatic you
got to hope it finds the right gear but
ultimately it comes down to torque
torque
a powerful amplifier and i'll just keep
the example on the hc1 here
has kind of torque throughout the rev
range so whether you're going straight
off the line or you're already at 75
miles an hour and you're trying to get
to a hundred
the power's there
you know what i mean it's like you've
got it in reserve and the problem is is that
that
95 of the time that you're listening to
music or watching movies more so with
music amps i don't care what they're
made of how much power they have they
are limping along they really are at any
given time you're probably only using
about 20 25 watts of power max however
however
when a musical passage gets complicated
or it gets dynamic let's say all of the
flutes in the symphony are playing
really loud and then suddenly here come
the timpani's and they just crash and
the volume level of what you're
listening to
goes from 60 db to 90 in an instant well
you need torque you need power you need that
that
on tap and when you only have 50 watts
even though 25 you're limping along just
fine you can cause an amp to clip bottom
out uh distort break you know what i
mean and when that happens all of that
power when the amplifier does that is
sent to your speakers and that can cause
your speaker drivers to burn out break
or you know blow your speakers
and so
more power even if you have efficient speakers
speakers
can protect
this from happening protect you your
investment your system from this
happening to it not to mention just when
you're listening you don't want those
crescendos to be full of distortion you
don't want those points of impact to
sound gritty grainy warbly
messy you want to be clean and pristine
and that's where more power comes in now
if you have say uh eclipse heritage
speaker that's like 102 db at one watt
and one meter
having a 25 watt amplifier a 50 watt
amplifier is kind of like having a 300
watt monoblock because it's just it's so
efficient with how it it applies the
power or how it can accept the power
um but for 90 of the mass-market
speakers out there on the market um
um
more power is typically always kind of a
good thing
awesome explanation i think that's
really going to help people i hope so i
hope so um
i feel like i've made a video about that
way way back maybe it's time to revisit
it but yeah um that's how i look at it
and that's kind of how
i know a lot of other people look at
awesome well i think we've i think we've
covered it okay
any anything else any last words
no no no i think i think we're good okay
so that's it for us today that is now
our review of the emotiva xp8 hc1 mono
amplifier what did you guys think let us
know down in the comments below and
while you're down there my question of
the day for you is this pretty simple
and that is what camp are you in are you
separates all the way or do you prefer
the simplicity of an integrated
amplifier let me know i am curious if
you like this video please do give it a
thumbs up like and subscribe go ahead
and ring that bell so that you're
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you use any of the links that christy
leaves for you down below you give us a
thanks or you become a member of this
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thank you very much for doing that
follow me on instagram at
recoveringaudiophile and that is it for
us today so remember
the only person who has to like the
sound of your system is you so happy
listening everybody thank you so much
for watching and we'll see you on the
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