Emotiva XPA-DR3 Review | Differential Reference Home Theater Amplifier

[@myhometheater7029]

That amp is on my radar. My Polk Rtia9’s are rated at 500watts each so this is perfect for them!!!! Great review brother!

[@LifeofBliss]

Appreciate it man! This would be perfect for those... I honestly love Emotiva amps. I'm purchasing this one from them to keep in my theater 🤘

[@MS-np6hv]

He's the best review partner you can have

[@michaelwright1602]

I have been through a few amps, and always wind up going back to my first generation XPA-2. I upgraded quite a bit of my other gear, and now it was time for the amplifier. I was initially looking at the ATI and Parasound 2 channel offerings, both around that $4000 mark. I have looked at the Emotiva XPA-DR2 since it came out. What held me back was a review by Amir over at Audio Science Review. Go look it up, it was a real hit against this amp, an unfounded hit in my book, as what he stated as distortion is not audible to the human ear. This XPA-DR2 is very musical, as I am sure the DR3 would be. This is an incredible and affordable amplifier, and I would easily put it up against amplifiers costing twice as much, like the ATI or Parasound. It is very detailed, handles the bass with ease, fast and hits hard. Midrange is smooth and very detailed, highs are not harsh, very clear with lots of clarity. This amp simply rocks the house. It is sad that this amp has so few reviews and is pretty much ignored. Emotiva has a real winner on their hands here.

[@wolfmanjacksaid]

Amir would run a few non-musical measurements and would rate class D ChiFi amps higher than this one, even though they sound fatiguing

[@kimmurphy3713]

@@wolfmanjacksaid do you know where all the components and parts of this amp are made in?

[@LifeofBliss]

Need MOAR POWER?!? 💪🔈🔉🔊 Check out the XPA-DR3 and other home theater products Emotiva has to offer! bit.ly/EmotivaDR3

[@RockRocky09]

great review, loved your interaction with your kid at the end, gave me a great smile!

[@LifeofBliss]

Thank you!

[@HomeCinemaJunkie]

Really nice amps! Also the way they have zip tied all cables is a nice detail.

[@velocci6666]

Did you toast the bread by leaving it on the amp while watching a movie?

[@cocosloan3748]

Not only hes expert in amplifiers and speakers, and own lots of power tools and he got great body - hes good father and good cook too :)

[@LifeofBliss]

I do make a mean piece of toast... 😉 thank you for the kind words!

[@cocosloan3748]

@@LifeofBliss I was joking a bit -hope you dont mind :) But still its true what I wrote :)

[@LifeofBliss]

@@cocosloan3748 lol I knew the cooking part couldn't be true! It was just toast! It gave me a good laugh 😁

[@hi-fihaven2257]

Just subbed! I really enjoyed your commments during the HiFi Summit. Have a great Day man!

[@LifeofBliss]

Appreciate it! Hope you find the videos helpful and entertaining... the HiFi Summit has been a lot of fun!!

[@glengatt3941]

Ow yes it's a beautiful beast,i will get one, you are right even the smallest basax series are well made and good if you don't need the extra power

[@romanlewandowski9616]

What a nice review a good explanation of the difference technically the XPA DR3 would have better specs but did you tested to determine whether or not you can actually hear a difference in sound quality between the XPA DRR3 and the XPA 7

[@LifeofBliss]

I was only using rca cables to connect, so no real advantage between the 2 besides more power. Both sounded great, but I could not tell a difference, just more power on tap with the dr3

[@deankim6687]

@@LifeofBliss are differential amps supposed to sound different?

[@LifeofBliss]

Just a different design. Lower noise floor, little more power in this case.

[@vegaslimoguy2376]

Actually, you would only need 128 watts to reach 120db with your speakers. My large monitors are rated at 102db@1watt per meter and they have registered 123 db on my decibel meter with a 200 watt input with plenty left as my power amp is rated at 450 watts per channel. You are right, definitely not needed! Lol. But it's nice to show off what they can do once in awhile.

[@LifeofBliss]

For sure, always better to have more in the tank! And yes, especially with all 3 playing, it'll be pretty dang loud at the seating position with just 128 wpc. And I agree, why even have big 'ol speakers if you're not gonna show off every now and then 😉

[@tedmanasa907]

Is that 200 watts peak or RMS? I’m considering the DR3 not for RMS power but for transients from hi-res music with 24-bit dynamic range. It seems you would need a lot of extra power to hit those peaks without soft clipping them. Has that been your experience?

[@LifeofBliss]

The DR3 does 450wpc rms. To my knowledge, I've experienced no clipping, but I'm just going by sound. I can't turn my system up high enough to clip or compress any dynamics without headphones on, which seems a bit silly to try and do lol

[@Zoomerland]

Thanks for the thorough review. The buzz is a no go for me. I'll stick with my parasounds. I'lll just have to buy another A21 for my Cornwalls 4s I'm getting

[@monroethegreat7539]

Am on the market for a External amplifier, My 2 choices is This Emotiva DR3 or the Rotel 1585, This Emotiva is 450watts per ch, But the Rotel 1585 is a 5ch at 200watts per ch, Am very undecided, Any recommendations?

[@ben23a31]

Good review 👍🏽 However. can you confirm if those rated watts are measured at the full frequency spectrum? Many manufacturers measure @1kz which is misleading.

[@LifeofBliss]

I went off the specs from their site, I believe it's at 1kz but you'd have to confirm with then

[@tedmanasa907]

Cute as heck. Been eyeing this amp for a bit now. Worth the extra over the regular XPA?

[@LifeofBliss]

Its definitely got an advantage over the XPA in power and noise floor. Really just depends on your budget and what you're trying to power

[@MarlonBrndo]

At these prices fully reference differential, what would be your suggestions 🤔

[@scottyo64]

I am confused why you would have a fully differential amp and run it with RCAs, it totally defeats the purpose. Please try it with XLRs

[@LifeofBliss]

Unfortunately I don't have a receiver with XLR output. Yet. I will revisit these amps when I do. Many people run these with RCA just for the power output as well. But ultimately I plan on upgrading the receiver at some point

[@TxZick]

Your "buzzzing" is from your source or your line voltage which is not clean. Check neutral to ground voltage that should be under 1vac

[@Electronized123_YT]

I'm really thinking about getting this to power my front end. Currently I have the Klipsch rf-7 III and the Klipsch RC 64 II. This should be perfect for them would you agree? Currently I'm running the Integra DRX 7.1 receiver and it just seems like I'm not getting the quality sound I should. I'm thinking on purchasing the Klipsch RP - 600m for my surround sound and maybe the rp-500sa for Dolby Atmos. Would I need another amp for those or could I just use my receiver to run the surround sound and Dolby Atmos and the amplifier to run my front end? I look forward to hearing your response thanks for your help brother!

[@LifeofBliss]

Obviously budget will determine what you can do, but if you didn't want to spend as much, getting an amo for your front 3 will give you the biggest improvement. Moat of the soundtrack comes from there, so you'll get the biggest gain throwing an amp in for the LCR. You'd do just fine using you receiver for the surrounds and atmos. If you feel you want another amp down the road for the others, it'll help dynamics and channel separation. But again, focus on the LCR first 👍 can't go wrong with emotiva though in my opinion!

[@Electronized123_YT]

Thanks for getting back to me brother! I just received my Klipsch RP-600M surround speakers today. It's great to hear that I can use my receiver to run those and the Dolby Atmos when I make the purchase. Hopefully I can pick up this amplifier soon. I am super excited!

[@monroethegreat7539]

I have a very similar setup, I have the Klipsch Rc-64 iii Center speaker, 2 Klipsch Reference Rf-7 iii towers, a pair of Klipsch 500sa Dolby Atmos to sit on top of the RF-7 iii, A pair of Klipsch RP-500M bipolar Surround Speakers, A pair of Klipsch RP-600M Bookshelf for surround backs, And Svs height speakers for ceiling, with 2 SvS PB 3000 Pro Subwoofers, I am running a Denon AVR-X4700H and I have my Emotiva XPA-DR3 coming in tomorrow, I had a Rotel 1585 external amplifier but the Rotel gave out after 6 months, So decided to try Emotiva, I've heard good things about there Amplifiers, And this video just proved everything I've heard😁

[@485danne]

@@monroethegreat7539 Was the Emotiva any good?

[@yournightmare9999]

​@@485dannehe still don't know that

[@godfather1116]

I own the Emotiva XPA-7 Gen 3 and an Emotiva XPA-5 Gen 3. I also used to have the hiss/humm on my XPA amps WHEN I used RCA, all of that went away when I went to fully balanced XLR's. Well, what do you think, are you keeping any of the Emotiva's?

[@LifeofBliss]

I have loved using these amps. They will not be going anywhere besides back in my rack 😎 and good to know with the XLRs. I really need to upgrade to a pre/pro at some point when funds allow for it

[@godfather1116]

@@LifeofBliss that' the spirit :)

[@ShaneM007]

Have you tried Monolith 7X, made be ATI? From what I've been reading and hearing the Monolith is a beast.

[@rickhunt3183]

Sorry this is late but im just getting to the party. If you have a hum there's a ground loop problem. Run a ground wire and connect to each piece of equipment. If that doesn't fix the problem look at it being a bad cable. If that's the case. Unplug cables one at a time until the problem goes away to locate the bad one.

[@desuhunachew2805]

Thank you for great explanation.Right now i have monoprice monolitch 7x200 my speaker klipsch r28f center rc64lll you think if i buy emotiva -xpa DR3 i will get better sound Thank you.

[@LifeofBliss]

You'll have about twice the power, so if you're running into clipping issues with your current amp, it may be worth upgrading. I don't think you'll notice too much of a sound difference outside if that though.

[@eubikedude]

LightDims for the win when using these to kill the blue light.

[@jeffk8359]

With regards to the Buzz you described I use JBL SR4732 s for my left ,right and center stage and I get the same Buzz at the same power levels class H AT first I thought it was a filtering issue with the switch mode power supply but I to soon same to realize it appears to becoming from the noise floor of my $1500 ish Denon pre amp outs (unbalanced RCA) coupled with the 111 db spl at 1 watt 1 meter IF you have Balanced XLR outs on your (AVR) then I feel better now because I now feel it is a sensitivity in the consumer gear just my humble opinion

[@LifeofBliss]

Yes once I switched to the emotiva RMC-1L with balanced preouts the buzzing disappeared. Those super sensitive speakers just pick up the slightest noise...

[@ashrum3604]

I was getting a low low frequency hum\buzz noise on my system as well. Just like you it did not matter the amplifier I used, but as you said i could really hear it from my listening position. Unlike you my receiver does not have balanced xlr outputs. I found it was being caused by a ground loop issue. I traced it to my digital antenna tuner. it was coming from the coax for my digital antenna and ground loop was being carried over the HDMI cable to the reviver whether it was set to the tuner input or not. I completely fixed it by putting a $15 ground loop isolation filter on the coax before the digital tv tuner. No more hum/buzz. I seems it is common for most ground loop noise issues people have to be related to their cable antenna connection.

[@peteroussa]

hi, my amp turns to protect mode, I was trying to turn it off and on and it was working but now it's not working anymore and emotive says I have to send it to service center and issue now I'm not us and for doing that it's not possible to do it hope to assist me how to solve this issue soon.

[@chilljoe5621]

I just got the polk r700 towers and I now hear the hiss from the tweeter using the DR3. I disconnected preamp and only had speaker cable from DR3 to speakers and hiss was still present but only can hear when I have my ear hard up at the tweeter not the midrange or bass. I wonder if I uncouple the biamp plates on the speaker and use good speaker wire jumpers instead!

[@youarehere0]

What receiver/preamp are you using? Are you using coax or XLR and were you able to fix your issue? I'm asking because I have the same speakers and thinking of pairing the DR3 with my Dennon AVC-X3700H :)

[@IceColdFireblade]

@5:00 could it be just what is called ground hiss? I used to have a slight, almost inaudible sound like you mentioned, in my speakers. It is completely gone after switching my power supply to one without grounding. Maybe it would solve it for you too?

[@geraldperry7779]

Is it worth the extra $1200 Canadian the DR3 vs regular 3 channel. Thanks for a great detail between the 2 amps.

[@LifeofBliss]

If you need the extra power, I'd say go for the DR3. 275w vs 450w x 3 channels. That will depend on your setup and how sensitive your speakers are, as well as how loud you like to listen. Personally, I don' know if you'll hear much of a difference sound quality wise unless running the DR3 with a fully differential input as well, which will lower the noise floor a bit. That's quite the difference in price, I'd look more at how much power do you really need as the deciding factor. Both are great amps though! Btw, if you wanted to help out the channel, click on one of the affiliate links I listed below when if/when you purchase your amp. Doesn't cost you anything and lets Emotiva know these videos are helpful! Thanks Gerald!

[@derrickmcpherson44]

What do FPL mean on the emotiva 7?

[@alf.m5961]

Will this be overkill for my B&W702s2 90db 50-300 w Any recommendations will be very appreciate it ?

[@LifeofBliss]

Nope. My speakers are 99 db efficient and there is an improvement when using an external amp even though they require very little power. Any of the xpa line amplifiers would do great with your speakers

[@chris_8567]

I would like to have the DR3 for my Arendal Tower 1723 and Center (Big Block). I have heared that the DR Series are not able for 2 ohm and dosent powerful enough for 16 ohm bei high Volume? Is that right? Two DR1 were going to Limit on two nubert nuVero 170 and by two Quadral Aurum Titan 9. The XPA 1 Gen 2 are more powerfull because of Transistor AMP and 80.000 buffering. Why does the Dr series have such poor buffering without electrolytic capacitors?

[@jeffk8359]

just heard you had rca as well I can share with you that I purchased a Rane Balance buddy BB44 (passive isolation transformer) consumer TCA to PRO XLR and the buzz was still there only problem is the pro level is 12 db hotter so i still feel it is the noise floor of the AVR pre amp outs Interestingly Denon wouldn't give me that spec OH I should have mentioned for the gear heads my compression midrange is a JBL 2445J and the tweeter is a JBL 2404 H-1 with sensitivities of 111 db and 105 respective so it may not be an issue for the average consumer

[@jeffk8359]

For your DIY front stage speaker build, you specced 99 db at 2.83 volts: Am I too (assume) that the DIY nominal Z is 8 Ohms for 1 watt

[@LifeofBliss]

Correct 8 ohms

[@edithboozy1000]

Did anyone else notice that Emotiva has changed from a 5 year to a 3 year warranty?

[@FatHulkRideEbike]

I have an XPA-DR2 and it has absolutely no hum, buzz, or hiss. Completely silent until something is playing.

[@LifeofBliss]

Yea it was my yamaha receiver using the rca connection. I have the rmc-1l now and its dead quite

[@peteroussa]

hi thanks for this video, I have an issue humming sound comes from Switch Mode Power Supply and also humming sound comes from my speaker after connecting the External Power Amplifier XPA 11 GEN 3 before using this External Amplifier I was connected with Marantz SR8015 and wasn't there this issue, I don't know how to solve this issue if I use power conditioner it may solve this issue or not because I'm planning to buy a ' Taga PC - 5000 ' Power Conditioner do you think it will solve this issue or not if you have also any suggestion I'll be appreciate that hope to assist me with it ASAP.

[@LifeofBliss]

Sounds like a ground loop issue. Either a power condition or grounding the amp to something will help. Search how to solve a ground loop issue for more details

[@toorop111]

Do you mind if i grab a tissue before i grab one of them bottles behind the emotiva! 😢

[@JensHove]

Inside looks built to last a long time.

[@LimbovitschHaim4Mir]

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL !

[@vader540is]

That kid is too cute.

[@LifeofBliss]

Now if we could just teach him to listen... 😂

[@danypoirier9423]

I've use subwoofer cables instead of rca,better insulation then rca,next best to XLR. No hum for me.

[@LifeofBliss]

Subwoofer cable? There's no such thing... are you just using a rca with better claimed shielding? Rca is rca, just transmit signal, not frequency specific

[@haysamd8643]

Probably talking about coaxial cables

[@emerickscott]

I feel a little like this channel went from a DIY theater build channel to an amplifier review channel....

[@LifeofBliss]

There's a bookshelf build video I just did recently. Kinda hard to keep building stuff when the theater is pretty much done... but have no fear, we'll be building a house soon and there will be a full dedicated theater build to follow 😉

[@zahidkm]

Getting a fully differential amp and still getting hum or buzz at the speakers kinda defeats the purpose of spending the extra money on that aspect. May be these are just good for massive power and reduced noise floor is just marketing gimmick.

[@LifeofBliss]

The entire signal path was not differential. Once switched out to XLR cables, speakers are dead silent 👍

[@johnsmith-qz4bv]

good video....cute kid

[@LifeofBliss]

Appreciate it John 🤘

[@duduking]

Cute boy 😊😊

[@HomeTheaterCommish]

Great stuff, I don't agree with the young man's assessment of Baby Shark, sorry to disagree.

[@LifeofBliss]

I don't either... We often disagree on things, but I think the different points of view is what helps with overall assessment of the amp 😂😉

[@phillipkelloway8905]

Buy a good power conditioner

[@chris6369]

DIMENTIONS NO, DIMENSIONS YES

[@bg7059]

Emotiva is subpar at best. Can do so much better than them.

[@MarlonBrndo]

@bg What would be your suggestions at this price range, fully differential 🤔