I would not consider Emotiva since it lacks a UL listing. If it were to cause a fire or hurt someone, I don’t want that extra liability.
I agree with the sentiment, but would broaden your statement to include every OSHA-approved Nationally Recognized Testing Labs (NRTL), of which UL is one.
All OSHA-approved NRTL's test to the same consensus-based standards, and for purposes of liability protection they're all legally equivalent.
So certainly consider an amp with a UL mark:
(Integra dta-70.1)
But also consider amps bearing a CSA mark,
(NAD T 975 multichannel amp)
or an ETL mark,
(AudioControl Savoy multichannel amp)
or a TÜV Rheinland mark,
(Mark Levinson No. 533 three-channel amp)
or an entela mark.
(Anthem MCA50 multichannel amp)
Or one with any of the other marks shown
here:
Without one of those marks, however, an amp should be categorically rejected.
Of the amps mentioned in the subject line, I know that the Anthem PVA7 carries an NRTL mark, as does their MCA50 (they don't have an MCA70).
For other alternatives,
NAD, AudioControl, and Arcam are three other "mid-tier boutique" firms that are responsible enough to send their multichannel amps to NRTL's for safety certification. Though all are a fair bit more expensive than the Anthem PVA-line, which is probably the current best value in a new-with-warranty multichannel amp. I don't know of another properly safety-certified amp in its price range, though there must be one or two (maybe from Marantz, or Onkyo/Integra?). For a lot less if you can find one, there are the old Sherwood Newcastle A-965/Boston Acoustics A7200 twins on the secondary market. Possibly others, though at current values the A-965/A7200 is the cheapest good multichannel amp of which I'm aware. If you want/need a 9-channel amp, the Integra dta-70.1 (above) is properly certified, and priced competitively.
As for Rotel...I'm honestly not sure about their whole line. But I can speak to their RMB-1506 six-channel amp, which I recently considered buying but rejected after reading the back panel. (I discovered the A-965 when the Rotel dealer had one on a closeout table.) Not only does Rotel fail to get NRTL safety certification, but also they fail to comply with mandatory federal regulations for devices containing switching amps or power supplies, 47 CFR § 15(b) et seq. The RMB-1506 does not have an FCC logo on the back panel, and the manual does not contain the statutorily required language.
As for Emotiva, to my knowledge the only product from them with proper safety certification is the wall wart that comes with their ET-3 12V trigger router! (And, for the record,
that's a good product if you need the functionality.)
Guess B&K's too cheap too. Maybe they didn't have any money left over after paying for that bomb-*** THX certification.
Why not? Yes, it is entirely possible, even likely, that B&K was simply too cheap to spring for independent safety testing. They were always a fairly small outfit, and never terribly stable financially. Yes, they spent money on THX certification, but at the time not being THX certified was seen as a marketing blunder. Audiophiles generally aren't smart enough to look for NRTL certification, so its presence isn't a big marketing feature.
Alternately, perhaps they didn't pursue proper safety certification because they knew their amps would fail. They are intentionally designed to demand too much from the wall at rated power to pass inspection. That's why some McIntosh multichannel amps have the "low impedance" switch. Without that current-limiting switch, they wouldn't pass NRTL inspection.
So Canelli you said Emotiva was too cheap for a UL Listing. But Krell, McIntosh, Mark Levinson? It doesn't seem like Emotiva should be singled out.
I don't know about Krell, as I'm not interested in anything that crude and overbuilt-for-the-sake-of-being-overbuilt, but all of the McIntosh and Levinson amps I've seen have proper NRTL safety certification. One such Levinson is pictured above.
But perhaps you're right that Emotiva is unfairly singled out. Here's an example as egregious as any Emo amp:
Outlaw Audio offers a cheap knockoff of the
perfectly competent NHT A1 monoblock amp, which they call the "M2200." NHT, being a responsible firm, obtained NRTL safety approval for the A1, as you can see from the ETL mark in the picture below.
(NHT A1 monobloc)
By contrast, here is a picture of a pair of Outlaw's NHT A1 knockoff for sale on the secondary market (i.e. not an airbrushed picture from the vender's website .)
I don't know if Outlaw Audio is lazy, cheap, or callous. But their failure to get NRTL safety certification for their cheap NHT A1 knockoff marks them definitively as one of those three things. That verdict is bolstered by the fact that the amp they knocked off does carry NRTL certification! So it's not even a question about whether the design would pass! Unfortunately, one does have to wonder how else their knockoff is "decontented" compared to the real thing.
One of the key things about audio, is ears. Nobody hears the same and that is why people have their own personal opinion about audio, right or wrong your ears are the final decision maker
That is a statement honored more often than not in the breach.
Fact of the matter is, few people rely on their ears. Most rely on their eyes and whatever biases have been crammed into their heads.
If people actually relied on their ears, as opposed to everything but, decisions would be made with full recognition of what almost 30 years of level-matched controlled subjective same/different listening sessions have told us about audible differences in audio electronics!
