EMP Speakers at the 2012 Audioholics Get Together

[admin]

We walked into the first room which was the EMP room and the first thing we saw was that they were playing Battleship - which if you have or haven't seen it, well, it's like a long series of explosions that lasts about 2 hours. It's the perfect movie to show off what a 5.1 system can do with respect to directionality, soundstage, bass response and overall system coherence. We also enjoyed hearing the clear dialogue which we could credit to the excellent EMP Impression E56Ci Center Channel. Let me back up and tell you a little bit about this system that we demoed. First of all we had the E55Ti Tower speakers, which we are very familiar with and have reviewed. The surrounds were the E55Wi surrounds. Bass was powered by the new ES1010i powered subwoofer, which uses a dual 10-inch poly-matrix cone driver and goes down to 35Hz.


Discuss "EMP Speakers at the 2012 Audioholics Get Together" here. Read the article.

[corey]

You refer to JUST an $1100 RX-A1020 receiver. Are you implying that these speakers are such a difficult load that something more is needed?

[Send Margaritas]

I believe he referred to the A1020 receiver (which is a decent receiver, don't read this wrong) as 'nothing particularly special'. Gene did a few reviews of EMP speakers, (listed as reviews on the EMP site), and specifically stated they were easy loads for the receivers. Most of the impressions series is rated at 6 Ohms.

I've got 4 E55TI(s), which seem an easy load and play loud. I use them as surrounds in a large room. (I like 'em, especially for the money. If you're considering them for a system that has decent subs already, they're very nice, natural, and detailed. They're just not tuned for deep bass.)

[gene]

You refer to JUST an $1100 RX-A1020 receiver. Are you implying that these speakers are such a difficult load that something more is needed?

My sister-in-law powers these speakers with her RX-A1010 receiver with no problem. A higher current amp would be beneficial of course, but impedance at low F is very high making them easy to drive with modestly powered receivers.

[cme4brain]

My sister-in-law powers these speakers with her RX-A1010 receiver with no problem. A higher current amp would be beneficial of course, but impedance at low F is very high making them easy to drive with modestly powered receivers.

My only complaint of these wonderful speakers is that they cannot be bi-amped, having only a singular speaker connection. I have a Yamaha RX-A810 AVR but I am powering these with an Emotiva XPA-3 200WPC amp. Barring that quibble, they are great speakers. Like another review on this thread, they are not tuned for low bass, but with a high crossover, a subW can make up the difference. I cannot tell this bass deficiency while watching movies, only when listening to music, at which point I change the listening mode to " 7 channel stereo".

[gene]

My only complaint of these wonderful speakers is that they cannot be bi-amped, having only a singular speaker connection. I have a Yamaha RX-A810 AVR but I am powering these with an Emotiva XPA-3 200WPC amp. Barring that quibble, they are great speakers. Like another review on this thread, they are not tuned for low bass, but with a high crossover, a subW can make up the difference. I cannot tell this bass deficiency while watching movies, only when listening to music, at which point I change the listening mode to " 7 channel stereo".

I recommend you run them fullrange all of the time with that nice amp you've got. Then run the subs for all modes of operation to get the bass in the lower octaves that you're missing.