# New two-channel system advice.



## jackfish (Dec 27, 2006)

Well, I'm due to replace my vintage system which now gets all the critical listening. I'm going to sell off parts of it to help fund a new system. I've settled on a few pieces to continue to explore and would like your help in determining any pitfalls to avoid and new directions that might be apparent. The room is 11.5' by 15.75' and has room treatments consisting of bass traps in the corners, and absorption panels at the first reflection points, behind the listening position and on the wall behind the loudspeakers. I'd likely play with removing the panels behind the speakers to allow the below mentioned Magneplanar MMG quasi-ribbon/planar dipoles to "breathe."

I've heard the Magneplanar MMGs several times and think they will satisfy me longterm, particularly with successful implementation of a subwoofer. I can't think of any other speaker I've heard under $1000 that sound as good. I know I could maybe double my speaker budget and go for 1.7s, but I think I'd like to try the MMG/subwoofer route first. For said hopeful successful MMG/subwoofer implementation I've found some pieces I'd like to try out which seem, based on initial research, to be potential solutions.

The subwoofer must be sealed and have a reputation for being "fast" to have any hopes of integrating well with the quasi-ribbon/planars MMGs. While I would love to find a used Martin Logan Grotto or Depth, I am thinking that the Martin Logan Dynamo 10" 200 watts RMS in closeout for $450 is a good candidate. Finding the right low and high pass crossover configurations are also important for this endeavor. That is why I am leaning towards the Emotiva USP-1 preamplifier for this system. I've listened to this particular piece with the Emotiva XPA-2 through Vandersteen 2Ce Signature IIs and was impressed with its quality and sound.

The USP-1 has bass management capabilities which provide 12dB/octave high and low pass crossovers from 50 Hz to 250 Hz. The MMGs are measured to go down to 50 Hz -3dB. I would try the USP-1 configured with the high pass output set at 50 Hz and above sent to the selected power amps driving the MMGs, and the low pass output set at 50 Hz and below sent to the LFE connection on the ML Dynamo sub. There would be some overlap between the two across their respective rolloffs.

To drive the MMGs I found the Norh Le Amp II intriguing. I heard these amps several years ago and was impressed that $300 monoblocks could produce the sound they did. Indeed, I thought they were very much like the Bel Canto e.one S-300 ($1,400). For $600 they will provide all the power the MMGs could ever use (400 watts into 4 Ohms), especially considering they will be relieved of sub 50 Hz duty in the proposed system. 

I'd use my existing sources for a while but can borrow some better stuff while I'm trying some of this.

OK, does this sound like an approach that might work given I have heard most of these pieces or does this make you cringe?

One Emotiva USP-1 preamplifier (delivered) $ 417.00
Two Norh Le Amp II monoblock amplifiers (delivered) $ 600.00
Pair Magneplanar MMG planar/ribbon loudspeakers (delivered) $ 629.00
One Martin Logan Dynamo 10” subwoofer (delivered) $ 449.99
Total $2095.99


Thanks for sticking with me on this!

Jay


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## Jon Liu (May 21, 2007)

Jay, it looks like you're well on your way with your system! The only suggestion I can make is possible looking at other solutions for the subs. I know ML makes some great products, but I think there are some other options right around the same price range, too.

For example, this one from Elemental Designs:

http://www.edesignaudio.com/product_info.php?t=2&products_id=681

That one seems to have a better extension down to 19Hz whereas the Dynamo only goes to 25Hz. Not that it will matter a whole, whole lot, but if you listen to some really heavy stuff, or pipe-organ stuff, then it'll make a difference.


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## jackfish (Dec 27, 2006)

Thanks. Does that sub have an LFE input?

As far as the Martin Logan Dynamo 10" goes it will be used for music only and I doubt I have much program material other than Marcus Miller that goes to 25 Hz. In any case, that ML sub will reproduce lower frequencies; I think I saw some discussion where someone suggested it was -10 dB at 20 Hz.


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## jackfish (Dec 27, 2006)

After reading up as much as can be found about the nOhr Le Amp II I'm now inclined to avoid them. Just too much uncertainty about perfromance, availability and delivery. Another couple hundred and I could get an Emotiva XPA-2 to mate with the USP-1. Quite a bit more of a known quantity. Wow, 500 wpc should make MMGs really sing.


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## Jon Liu (May 21, 2007)

Well, the Emotiva seems like a good bet for sure! Glad to hear that you actually made some great progress in making a decision!


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## JCD (Apr 20, 2006)

Have you considered buying used?
Or how about DIY? I'm thinking DIY for he sub -- could build something that would be dynamic and powerful for not too much scratch.


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## legion1capone (Jan 30, 2010)

I can not say enough good things about my system being driven by the USP1 and XPA2. The only thing I would upgrade would be from the XPA2 to XPA1's. Now the XPA1's would really make some Maggy's sing!


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## jackfish (Dec 27, 2006)

Thanks, what speakers are you useing with the USP-1 and XPA-2?


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## Guest (Jan 30, 2010)

+1 on DIY. Check out some of the kits at madisound. For a sub (I'm wanting to read more reviews myself) I'm looking at the Dayton RS1200K 12" Reference Series Subwoofer Kit.


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## legion1capone (Jan 30, 2010)

I am using a pair of B&W 705's right now. I am looking to upgrade to either 805's, LSA1 modified units from underwood hifi, or if I can make the space some Magnepan 1.6 or 1.7's.


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## K Shep (Jan 30, 2010)

I would do a back ground check on the Emotiva gear prior to a purchase.


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## selden (Nov 15, 2009)

From what I've read, people who have currently available Emotiva equipment seem to be extremely happy with them and with the company's customer service.

People who have been trying to get their new pre/pro are less than happy about the situation: it's buggy and late.


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## legion1capone (Jan 30, 2010)

This was posted by Dan Laufman just the other day about the UMC-1 problems. I love how down to earth this company is. When the customers have problems or questions they answer them! I can't say that for some other companies I've had to deal with. especially when it comes to admitting when they did something wrong, and are doing everything they can to fix it promptly.

"Gentlepersons,
I asked Cathy to lock the original UMC-1 status page on the forum as it had grown to monstrous proportions and some of you were having difficulty wading through the hundreds of posts just to find out what the latest info. was. More disturbingly, it was starting to feel to much like a certain forum that we strive to be very different from; a place that I do not even look at anymore. It seems to me that some people from that other forum have decided to park themselves here and make everyone unhappy, not just themselves. They must think it's sport. Apparently, misery knows no bounds....

Anyway, on to more productive discussiuon... The UMC-1 status as of 1.29.09.

1. We have resolved all known issues save for one item that we feel will be cleaned up this weekend. The UMC-1 is working beautifully. Now some may wish to twist my words and add a dose of negativity and cynicism to this, but I know facts of the matter. And as always, I stand behind my statements, my company, and it's products. You can judge for yourselves who has more credibility when reading other peoples opinions; especially those who do not even own this product. 

2. We have nearly completed work on the software upgrade utility that you will need to easily update you unit. This had taken a bit of work and it was originally planed to come out in a month or two, but the SW issue made it take front and center. It is essential that we have an easy method for you to upgrade you SW. We will be posting the specifics of this item very soon, RIGHT HERE.

3. We have acquired a Rovi/Macro-vision license that will allow us to open up more of the transcoding features inherent in the UMC-1, but that were originally restricted. Frankly, we here have pretty much given up on analog video, but it seems that some of you are still using analog inputs on your projectors and displays, and this was causing you pain. So, I decided to cough op many thousands of dollars on this, even though in our opinion, it's a dead end technically. I hope you understand that when you speak (politely and without unnecessary venom), we do listen. 

4. We have received ONE unit back for a refund, and this is from a gentleman who wanted to use the unit on his composite input on this TV. At the time, the Macrovision limitations was a deal breakers for him. But, we think he'll be back now! Again , if any of you who own the UMC-1 want a refund, please call us on Monday and you will be given a prompt refund of your purchase price and freight. We will also pay the return freight.

For those of you looking to criticize us, have fun . For those of you looking for the facts of the matter to understand where we truly are and to make informed decisions, I hope this is helpful.

To all of our customers and friends, our most sincere apologies for the inconvenience and our thanks for your trust and patience. We truly believe that the UMC-1 is a fantastic product. 

Best regards,
Big Dan

P.S. for the record, here are my previous posts on the subject in order of appearance.


Hi All,
Well , you know something had to go wrong! We seem to have a small issue with the UMC-1 software and it is causing quite a bit of excitement on the board... first off, let me state this fact; we are not using our customers as Beta testers, as some kind persons have suggested. 

We have spent thousands of man hours on this product and have done extensive testing on it in many systems and configurations all around the world. We would not have released it if we were aware of any issues. I've made you wait this long, would another week or two have made any difference? We thought that we were in great shape. I authorized the release, so the buck stops here.

Prior to the final code release, we made a very minor software adjustment, checked its operation and released the final SW for production. It appears to have caused some unintended side effects as have been noted by some early users. Of course it couldn't have happened at a worse time; Lonnie, myself, our senior software managers, and support staff were all at CES when the reports started coming in. 

We believe there has been a corruption of the code when the latest change was compiled and we are working to resolve this issue. We did not have these problems prior to the final release.

The issues that I am primarily aware of have been noted on other posts, so I won't repeat them here. Some are confirmed and others are not. 

The important fact is that there are some functional issues to correct and we are addressing them with all possible speed and diligence.

I would request that UMC-1 owners contact us directly if you have any issues so that we can document them properly and resolve them for you. This will help all of us get the UMC-1 settled in quickly.

Anyone is who uncomfortable with their purchase will be given a prompt refund of the purchase price, including freight. 

If you are essentially happy with your UMC-1, please know that we are going to have these issues resolved as quickly as humanly possible. Lonnie and the team are working on this as I write. The unit is completely flash upgradeable and we are 100% confident that there are no hardware issues.

If you have been contacted for a shipment of the UMC-1 and wish to cancel or hold your order, please let us know by email ([email protected]) or phone.

Again, the issues that have been reported by users and confirmed in additional testing that we have done on our side are being addressed! 

The UMC-1 is essentially fine, and I'm sure that most of you believe this.

On behalf of myself and the entire Emotiva team I apologize for this error and the inconvenience it has caused you, our friends, and clients. Please know that we are fully capable of resolving these minor issues and will make this as easy and painless for all of you as possible.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding.
Big Dan and the Emotiva team

Next...

Good morning everyone.

OK, Lonnie and the team in China seem to have addressed 99% of the problems we were experiencing.

Here is a list of the main items resolved yesterday. 

1. DSP modes have now been fixed.
2. ARC test tones were lowered by 4.5db 
3. Microphone correction file has now been re-corrected.
4. ARC sub levels have also been fixed
5. Stereo mode has been changed from all channel stereo to only 2 channel stereo.
6. PLIIx modes have now been fixed.
7. 7.1 analog input has now been fixed.
8. DTS-MA is now working on all channels as it should.
9. NEO-6 is locked within the Cirrus chips to apply to 2 channel only. Need to follow up with Cirrus about applying this to other formats.

In addition to the items that were found to be corrupted and corrected we are adding the discrete input codes to the unit and will publish them in a day or two. When you upgrade your SW you will also be able to add direct input commands to a learning remote.

We are still testing all aspects of operation and will keep you posted. 

We have not gotten to the bottom of the video output resolution lock issue but we're on it, and the India team will get it corrected quickly. On some systems it's fine and others it can forget settings on turn on and default to 480p... interesting to us, but annoying to you. Don't worry, we've got one of the best video teams in the business working on this.

So all in all, we're looking pretty good today.

I'll keep you updated on this thread as news comes to me. I would imagine we'll have a SW update ready for you next week.
Best to all,
Big Dan

Next...

Good morning!

Today's update from Lonnie and the video team:

We've gotten to the bottom of the video issue. This problem had nothing to do with data corruption of the compiled code, which is what happened in the audio subsystem. The audio subsystem is now working perfectly. (although I'm sure someone will find a bug ) 

It was an operational decision made by our video team and is really a matter of interpretation of how the system should operate. We've had a discussion outlining how the system behaves in the "real world" and have come up with the following correction for the video resolution setting and defaults:

You set video output resolution. System will store the HDMI output resolution on turn on.
- Whenever the sink is connected to the AVP, system will try to apply the previously set HDMI output resolution.
- If previous output resolution is not supported by current sink, then resolution mode will be changed to “Auto” and output will be set to preferred resolution of sink. 
- If HDMI sink connection is lost, the component output is enabled, AVP will output will be switched to 480p. 

This should take care of the problem. If your system is set up and nothing changes hardware wise from turn off to turn on, you'll be right where you left off. If you change monitors (the sink device) it'll try to make it work as described. If it doesn't support your setting, it'll default to auto and give you the preferred resolution of the new device. Worse case, it will revert to the 480p "limp home" mode to give you video on component to get you back in business.

So there we are! We'll test all new code throughly and then merge the audio and video codes into the main operating SW and compile. We'll test this all out and when satisfied we'll put the update on the site for all of you to flash your UMC-1's.

We'll be in a deep, deep state of AV bliss. We may not be able to come back to the real world... although, it's a risk I'm willing to take! 

Heading to Anaheim this morning, so I have to pack! 

Best regards,
Big Dan 

Next...

Good morning all,
Greetings from sunny So Cal!

Well, we seem to be in very good shape this morning. We've addressed all known issues on both the video and audio side. Lonnie and the team are now testing, testing, and testing.

I'll have more news and specific advice on updating your software once they give me the green light.

Best regards,
Big Dan

Next...

Saturday's update...

We're doing very well with the extended testing and verification. We found one bug in the system that caused excessive HDMI time to lock issues under some very specific conditions and this has been addressed and corrected.

More testing going on now. I still believe we'll release the update next week as planned.

Heading home from Anaheim tomorrow. I'm still working at NAMM, but Cathy and the girls are having fun at Disneyland... 

Talk to you on Monday,
Big Dan 


Next...

Gentlepersons,
As you have seen from my previous posts we are working to resolve all known issues. We are very close to releasing the update.

Please do not worry about the minor glitches you are experiencing, the update will address them. Again, if anyone is worried or dissatisfied and wants to return their unit, you may do so. Just call for an RMA.

I want to point out one issue relating to HDMI. The UMC-1 is designed to automatically associate the selected HDMI input audio and video feeds together . This is not a defect or a bug. You cannot ask for audio from the HDMI stream and video from another source. This is not a valid selection.

Also, due to ever increasing limits on what can be ported out on analog video outputs, it is get getting more and more difficult to use the UMC-1 to down convert the HDMI video to component video. These are not technical limitations of the UMC-1, but rather limitations on what we are legally allowed to to port out on copy encoded source material. Some of you may have seen the warning flag on component video when trying to down convert a Macrovision encoded source.

The content owners are moving us all to a fully "secure" media stream (HDMI) in order to save us all from our evil selves. Heaven forbid we use an HDMI source to send the down converted analog (ie "unencrypted") output to the component input on our older projector or display! We might start making illegal copies in our bedroom and undermine the industry.

These are all recent developments and I'm sorry to say this is the way things are heading. In the next generation of processors, we will not even bother with this feature as the content owners are making it useless.

It's all going to HDMI and encrypted streaming, so let's get used to it, for good or bad.

Keep the faith, we're almost ready! 
Best regards,
Big Dan 


Next...

Happy Friday everyone!

Well, we've had a very busy week here. We seem to have sorted out 99.9% of all known issues. 

The platform is working beautifully! Everything that we know of is addressed and the improvements are really noticeable. We not only repaired the corrupted link that caused the first "major" malfunction, but Lonnie took advantage of the occurrence to fine tune some parts of the SW some that were slated for a future update.

We are working on one last bug; this is an audio interrupt that occurs once in a while, particularly on DVR's as you jog back and forth interrupting the HDMI streaming. Also, we have been able to make this occasionally occur when pausing and then starting HDMI streams. It appears to be an EDID (handshaking) issue. Not always, but once in a while. The problem with this is it makes you have to change inputs to re-acquire the stream. Annoying, to say the least.

We think we know what is going on here and the team is working on this bug. We believe we'll have it ironed out by Monday or Tuesday. 

So, we should have a download for you next week. We've taken the approach that we should carefully sort out all of these issues and give you one update the really address the known bugs instead of a never ending series of updates.

One of the cool things Lonnie added was velocity sensing for the volume control, now you can turn up or down very quickly if need be, or rotate slowly for fine adjustment. Sweet.

All in all, more of what is already a very good thing. I think you will all be VERY pleased.

By the way, I have put a hold on shipments until I have the final SW as we are going to load it in the units before anymore are sent out. We'll resume shipments next week.

Thank you all once more for your patience and support.
Best regards,
Big Dan

Next...

Hi,
In reference to the UMC-1 and USP-1 IR code overlap issue...

No excuses here. We screwed up, some of the codes overlap and control the units simultaneously. I know, I know, this should have never gotten past us, but it did.

We've got a fix for those of you who are running UMC-1's with USP-1's in the same system. We'll be sending you a new remote with a separate IR code stack. This will get you fixed up.

I'm sorry to say that it'll be a few weeks until the new remotes arrive. Stay tuned and we'll follow up on the forum and the product pages with an announcement. We'll also be looking for those of you who have purchased both products from us and we'll send this remote and instruction's to you without your needing to ask... but I'm sure you will anyway 

Best to all,
Big Dan""


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## jackfish (Dec 27, 2006)

So far in my quest I have the Magnepan MMGs in hand, just ordered a B-stock Emotiva USP-1, and made a deal for a used Emotiva ERC-1. Two Emotiva UPA-1 monoblock amplifers are next on the list.

Yet to get are:
Epik Empire or Rythmik F12G subwoofer
Rega P1 or Project Debut III turntable
One pair GIK TriTraps, four GIK 244s.
Magnestands for Magnepan MMGs


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## needspeed52 (Aug 2, 2008)

I can not stress enough the extent the EMO staff are willing to go with customer service and the value of their product line. I own the UPA-2 amp and could not be more satisfied. I also plan on getting a pair of the UPA-1's, if they are anything like the UPA-2 they are a steal at $300 apiece.
Jeff.


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## jackfish (Dec 27, 2006)

I listened to the latested iteration of my new system last night. I am really enjoying the detail and open sound of the Magnepan MMGs. The Emotiva gear appears to be all its cracked up to be. The Emotiva ERC-1 CD player is a very nice unit, the Emotiva USP-1 preamplifier is as well. The biggest surprise is one of my Phase Linear 400 Series I power amplifiers in temporary duty with these other components. The fairly consistent 4 Ohm load of the MMGs do not seem to present any problem for this almost 40 year old amp which should produce 400 wpc with that load. While listening at an average of 75 dB with some 85-90 dB peaks it runs a little warm and the needles of the VU meters only go about 1/3 toward the red. The sound this classic beauty produces is still wonderful. But I'm committed to my from Vintage to Emotiva change. So, in a few weeks we will see how the Emotiva UPA-1s do.


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## jackfish (Dec 27, 2006)

Well, I got a pair of two month old Emotiva UPA-1 monoblocks for $502 delivered and they should be here next week. I'll let you know more once they are set up and harkened.


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