Are we ready for Emotiva .... is it a good deal for us ??

[Spidey]

Guys, I wrote a post about shopping from Emotiva but I have now doubts about getting Emotiva to India and getting it to work here.

Also, the sale thead by Manu which took such a ugly turn has left a bad taste in our mouths about the sale and about the product also. First, should such a "great" product fail not once but twice , both new ones ?( Note Manu's old and the new UMC had both failed).

It really felt bad to see the whole circus and so called great after sales support including handing out a free unit. Friends, will this behavior last after the company matures and advances a bit... Now it is in a starting stage and does not want to offend the initial overseas buyers. But this is once in a moon chance that you will get the same service in future.

So would it not be better to wait till

1) the products especially the processors become stable.
If they fail at the drop of a hat, how is it a good deal ?

2) should we not expect a Indian warranty and Indian service center for intelligent after sales support especially down the line in next few years?
No, I am not asking for the Indian dealer( the great middle man that gobbles up the margin).

3) Are the Emotiva prices that CHEAP or REASONABLE ?
Say for a newbie , to start a
Stereo : buy USP1 + UPA2 : total cost > 75kc (+ERC1??)
Home theater: buy UMC1 + XPA/UPA 3,5,7 > 90k
So why are we jumping that we are getting the deal of the century.

4) I have heard my XPA-2 and let me tell you from my initial hearings, i felt it is not the most MUSICAL AMP i have listened... yes, it has the slam but it missed somewhere on sweetness of music.Maybe it would take some burn-in as i have played only for few days and few hours.

5) Some time has to pass for us and Emotiva line to mature , till we spend our hard earned money on it.

NOTE : Right now, Emotiva would be a buy for a intermediate to advanced user of hifi, who is adventurous, likes new things, ready to risk international purchase for which he may be rewarded VERY WELL IN THE END by his experience like Subhash who has XPA-1s and is on moon hearing them and I may join him if my setup goes right)



thanks

 

[anm]

so are you planning to sell your xpa-2?

 

[anm]

good thought Spidey to bring this up. Part for part, emotiva is cheaper. But if we compare their pro+amps with avrs, it may be expensive.
So people need to think what they want before they jump on to it.
Looking forward for your impressions of xpa-2, and hope it would get better with burn in (I hope it gets burnt in before your warranty/ return period burns up).

 

[Spidey]

No, i am not selling the xpa-2.

thanks

 

[Amit21]

Hi Spidey,

I totally agree as far as Emotiva is concerned....To be frank i am also going thro the same dilemma..... whether to buy EMO or not.....But on the other side i dont find a good pre+power combination @ the same price band...(I.e Around 80-90K)....
Can you suggest some....

Also, Please let me know your impression about EMO stereo setup you own...

 

[cmsajith]

As far as I am concerned, I am not a fan of their amps for music (So I will be using Quad 909 for both movies and music). But the Emo amps should perform very well for movies since it has the slam. Comparing the proc + Amp and AVR, the former one w/ UPA-1/UPA-2/UPA-5/UPA-7 Amp will be cheaper and VFM (UPA-5 is the best VFM amp), hence recently there was a combo offer for UMC-1 + UPA-5 for 1128$ (should be available here for around 75-85K which is far more better option than the onkyo's high end AVR)

Dont expect the processors to iron out all the issues as this is not uncommon with other well known brands also. Moreover the speed at which the technology changes they are not able to make the product error free. With the recent revisions 7.1 or 7.2, from the reviews, it seems to be the UMC-1 s/w is almost firm w/ few more issues they are trying to sort out (one among them is the audio drop out) and I think they are considering ver 7.1 as the stable production ver. Also I believe they will try to sort out almost all the major issues even in future as I had heard that recently a firmware update was released for their previous gen LMC-1 which is not in production.

Moreover the attraction is the price point at which it sells and the 5year warranty (for overseas customers they allow sending the specific part to them to be fixed or replaced once we got the root cause of the issue or they will send you the required parts and will assist the local engineer (as per their policy document). So I believe its not a big risk to go for that.

 

[venkatcr]

2) should we not expect a Indian warranty and Indian service center for intelligent after sales support especially down the line in next few years? No, I am not asking for the Indian dealer( the great middle man that gobbles up the margin).

The numbers in India is too small for Emotiva to set up a service centre. Even if a third party does set up a service centre, the number again will be a deterrent. Pioneer that sells so many units of many products had set up third party service centres all over the country. Unfortunately, they were not allowed to service other brands. The service centre slowly started going out of business.

For Emotiva, doing what they did with Manu is much more economical than incurring the cost of a service centre in India. Even if they have to replace 1 in ten units, it will be cheaper.

The smarter way for Emotiva will be to set up an Asian warehouse that takes back and replaces faulty units. That way they can cover India, neighbouring countries and countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, etc.

Cheers

Cheers

 

[cmsajith]

The numbers in India is too small for Emotiva to set up a service centre. Even if a third party does set up a service centre, the number again will be a deterrent. Pioneer that sells so many units of many products had set up third party service centres all over the country. Unfortunately, they were not allowed to service other brands. The service centre slowly started going out of business.

For Emotiva, doing what they did with Manu is much more economical than incurring the cost of a service centre in India. Even if they have to replace 1 in ten units, it will be cheaper.

The smarter way for Emotiva will be to set up an Asian warehouse that takes back and replaces faulty units. That way they can cover India, neighbouring countries and countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, etc.

Cheers

Cheers

Exactly, if they are going for an indian warranty and service center then definitely it will reflect in the product cost.

 

[captrajesh]

Given that they have no service set up here, I thought they did great job by sending a new piece in good faith. What else do u think they should do. Also, you seen to judge the product reliability based just on Manu's case. I'm not sure of how many other cases are there or it might be that Manu goofed up.

 

[Spidey]

For once, I would like to be proved wrong.
I would welcome members to tell me and all of us, that indeed Emotiva is a good deal (and so it turns out in long run).

I do have faith in company but we need to give time till the product line evolves and we our self evolve to become a global buyer or consumer.

thanks

 

[GeorgeO]

In all fairness, a similar situation could also arise with respect of any other small company. So I think this question is applicable to ALL smaller brands which dont have an Indian presence.

 

[aminder]

a few days ago i raised a question on the quality and worth of the emotiva products and how everybody reacted can be seen in that thread. Its not a question of manu's both units being faulty on arrival what matters is that as per emotiva they have some good and special check up of things that are being send to users abroad like india and still not only manu but a lot other emo users report that their products were DOA or had hardware issues .I have a friend in mumbai who was supposed to send me an emo umc1 for a review but unfortunatly he told me that his umc1 locked up after a firwmare update and it wont start up, he is not lucky like manu and he has been asked to send his umc1 for a check back to emotiva usa, he would have to bear the shipping charges both ways. Also i believe there would be a customs duty applicable once again when he gets it back.

and somthing regarding the emotiva amps as we all know that a good quality capacitor plays a very important role in an audio product let it be any stage , the power supply , the pre amp stage and the power amp stage . The emo amps use capacitors from a brand called TREC which are cheap and are easily avaliable even in the indian market and are often termed as chinese capacitors by the vendors. This brand is even listed on the bad capacitors website (badcaps) as inferior and unreliable and even good repair guys dont recommend these and a few other capacitors.Those high rated capacitors in the emotiva amps from a good brand like bennic ,mundorf or yamaha could cost a lot , and i believe this is how the cost cutting has been done on the amps.

 

[Spidey]

Dear Aminder,

We are not here to critisise (that too blindly and blatantly , and often biased way) a new company that is selling quality products.

We are new consumers and the company has new products.

Regarding After sales, I have heard American companies giving exemplary support in many cases.
One of my friend just went to Apple store with his Ipod which had few software or minor problems and they replaced it without any questions.

So we as a new consumer have to adjust our mindset for such after sales also.
In India, just because the complaint makers are so many that no company here gives such support.

thanks

 

[marsilians]

a few days ago i raised a question on the quality and worth of the emotiva products and how everybody reacted can be seen in that thread. Its not a question of manu's both units being faulty on arrival what matters is that as per emotiva they have some good and special check up of things that are being send to users abroad like india and still not only manu but a lot other emo users report that their products were DOA or had hardware issues .I have a friend in mumbai who was supposed to send me an emo umc1 for a review but unfortunatly he told me that his umc1 locked up after a firwmare update and it wont start up, he is not lucky like manu and he has been asked to send his umc1 for a check back to emotiva usa, he would have to bear the shipping charges both ways. Also i believe there would be a customs duty applicable once again when he gets it back.

I do understand the frustrations and concerns of your friend and people such as yourself. However, the returns policy etc. are very clearly laid out on emo website which should not be a surprise. Thats the risk you take for ordering off the internet direct sellers such as emo or Outlaw or Axiom. If the product is DOA, you have to send it back on your own terms.

I am not defending Emo but I want to point out their policy is pretty obvious and should be part of the customer research before committing to purchase.

and somthing regarding the emotiva amps as we all know that a good quality capacitor plays a very important role in an audio product let it be any stage , the power supply , the pre amp stage and the power amp stage . The emo amps use capacitors from a brand called TREC which are cheap and are easily avaliable even in the indian market and are often termed as chinese capacitors by the vendors. This brand is even listed on the bad capacitors website (badcaps) as inferior and unreliable and even good repair guys dont recommend these and a few other capacitors.Those high rated capacitors in the emotiva amps from a good brand like bennic ,mundorf or yamaha could cost a lot , and i believe this is how the cost cutting has been done on the amps.

I was once an owner of a Marantz SA15S1 CD/SACD player and the capacitor on the power circuit developed a leak causing great amount of noise. If you go by historical trends then Marantz is one of the most stable products but I just happened to get a defective unit. Would I blow Marantz out of the water, no, because you understand these electronics are prone to issues. I still respect the company and would buy again if interested in one of their product lines.

Re; components in the amps, if you ever opened some of the higher components from YBA or Music Hall or such you would be surprised with the components. Thats all part of cost cutting and enabling people like you and i to be able to buy good branded items of 40K and such. I learnt the hard way that there is not 100% truth to the statement "cheap and best". Upto certain point you get what you pay for.

 

[unleash_me]

With the Emotivas, they're actually good, and the very cheap price does give them a following. However, they are cheap and cheaply made in a Chinese audio mill, and they are a far cry from the performance of our amps. Just too huge of a difference difference to take it too seriously, and I have heard them all. I don't have a positive opinion about Chinese made equipment, regardless of what brand, and Emotiva is just one of many.

This is an excerpt from a chain of email conversations I was having a while back with a highly reputed amp designer/manufacturer whoz name I don't want to drag in here. We were having a healthy debate on the merits and demerits of companies like Emotivas who seem to get the best of both worlds by slapping their sticker on cheap Chinese produce.

Now may be its their original design or may be its not. But clearly Emotiva got a huge fan following and that does say something about their quality, the type of quality that many seem to like and recommend. So if such a company is bringing out quality products for a reasonable price backed by an excellent customer service, its probably a good idea to consider them if one is on a limited budget.

As for the defective units and their free replacements discussed here, probably the production cost of these units itself makes it worthwhile for them to send multiple replacements without asking for their defective returns - guess its still all profit for them with this business model.

Peace.

 

[kapvin]

I do understand the frustrations and concerns of your friend and people such as yourself. However, the returns policy etc. are very clearly laid out on emo website which should not be a surprise. Thats the risk you take for ordering off the internet direct sellers such as emo or Outlaw or Axiom. If the product is DOA, you have to send it back on your own terms.

I am not defending Emo but I want to point out their policy is pretty obvious and should be part of the customer research before committing to purchase.




I was once an owner of a Marantz SA15S1 CD/SACD player and the capacitor on the power circuit developed a leak causing great amount of noise. If you go by historical trends then Marantz is one of the most stable products but I just happened to get a defective unit. Would I blow Marantz out of the water, no, because you understand these electronics are prone to issues. I still respect the company and would buy again if interested in one of their product lines.

Re; components in the amps, if you ever opened some of the higher components from YBA or Music Hall or such you would be surprised with the components. Thats all part of cost cutting and enabling people like you and i to be able to buy good branded items of 40K and such. I learnt the hard way that there is not 100% truth to the statement "cheap and best". Upto certain point you get what you pay for.

I was sure that the provocatively titled thread would get participation from the tonewinner club. thank you marsilians for explaining the point so well to him. my view exactly..

And I also think that spidey answered his own question - emo is not for everybody.

Having said that, i beleive you run less risk importing an emotiva, than say a reciever from the US, given voltage conversion issues. I saw a onkyo 608 DOA thread yesterday, but do we have any "are we ready for onkyo threads?".

Of course, importing an Emo (especially the a Pre-pro and especially when issues Have been documented, with this model) is a leap of faith to be made only if you have more than basic understanding of audio and the ability to trouble shoot.

I, myself, heard about emo fromt his forum itself (santhol's thread) and later heard it at santosh's house and read about it, before taking a call.

for manu, (in hindsight) the best option would have been to buy the emo power amp and mate it to a basic hd-audio receiver with pre-outs

for spidey, whose sense of audio is clearly well above mass market, at a level where the mating of source-interconnects-amp-cable-speaker is an art and changing a single element can change the sonice signature significantly, again, may have been better off with an audition; but again, equipmentr failure should not be a challenge that he'll face.

my point?
- many of us on this forum are ready for emotiva- being able to judge clearly the upsides and downsides we run. however to recommend it as a solution for everyone, especially newbies to hifi, may be inappropriate now (and may always be inappropriate)

and lastly, I do not remember emo ever advertising on this forum or working actively to solicit business from india. Emo's rep on the forum is solely on word of mouth of exisitng owners.

 

[dillihifi]

Having said that, i beleive you run less risk importing an emotiva, than say a reciever from the US, given voltage conversion issues. I saw a onkyo 608 DOA thread yesterday, but do we have any "are we ready for onkyo threads?".

Just a clarification the Onkyo referred to as DOA was plugged into a cheap voltage converter (which only give half of the supply cycle so they average 110volts but are not step downs) to power the receiver on. Maybe the Onkyo is not DOA.

 

[kapvin]

Just a clarification the Onkyo referred to as DOA was plugged into a cheap voltage converter (which only give half of the supply cycle so they average 110volts but are not step downs) to power the receiver on. Maybe the Onkyo is not DOA.

similarly for the emo -- may have been a bad flash..

I'll just tell you an an anecdote about my flash upgrade for th emo..

I was moving straight from the factory version 6 to version 7.2

plugged the umc1 into a ups powerfeed, used a laptop to do the firmware upgrade.. and it kept freezing..

while trouble shooting i noticed the usb cable to the emotiva was running very close to the apple airport express.. I switched that off, and had a flawless firmware upgrade (till now )

 

[square_wave]

This is an excerpt from a chain of email conversations I was having a while back with a highly reputed amp designer/manufacturer whoz name I don't want to drag in here. We were having a healthy debate on the merits and demerits of companies like Emotivas who seem to get the best of both worlds by slapping their sticker on cheap Chinese produce.

Now may be its their original design or may be its not. But clearly Emotiva got a huge fan following and that does say something about their quality, the type of quality that many seem to like and recommend. So if such a company is bringing out quality products for a reasonable price backed by an excellent customer service, its probably a good idea to consider them if one is on a limited budget.

As for the defective units and their free replacements discussed here, probably the production cost of these units itself makes it worthwhile for them to send multiple replacements without asking for their defective returns - guess its still all profit for them with this business model.

Peace.

Agree.


There is no free meal in this world.

A point about quality :-
It completely depends on who recommends it. It is a very subjective thing !

 

[dillihifi]

similarly for the emo -- may have been a bad flash..

Fully agree and second that just trying to keep the record straight. I believe that the EMOs are one of the best value for money available as of now.