Emotiva PT-100 Review

[mmickk]

Well I have ordered one and am expecting it to arrive tomorrow. I needed a unit that included a DAC, sub connections and would not cost me a whole lot of cash.
My old Onkyo AVR has not been my favorite unit that I have ever bought, especially since I have had to repair the HDMI board twice as well as replacing several resisters to get the display working again. But until recently It did not seemed to do a bad job of passing signals to my amp. Now, all of a sudden I am not getting anything from the left speaker. After some diagnostics I found the amp to be good and nothing has happened to the speaker but I am not getting anything from the pre-out jack for the front left. The receiver itself plays fine using the internal amps. I should make a nice unit for the barn.

So, looking forward to seeing what the PT100 can do for me.

 

[Yukon888]

So, looking forward to seeing what the PT100 can do for me.

I've been thinking about getting one. Hope to hear your impressions of it.

 

[mmickk]

I am going to bump this thread at least once more. I have received my PT-100 and have been playing with it. As mentioned before I have this paired to my "old" gen1 XPA-2 amp that I have had for around 6-7 years now. I was able to buy that on sale when they were letting them go for $600, so with this added I have a nice separates system for under 1K.

It has taken some time to find settings that I am happy with. On the old Onkyo AVR I had used the auto room equalization and bass management achieve pretty good sound in my small rectangular listening room. My first attempts with the PT 100 just did not sound good which surprised me as I did not think it should have seen a huge difference. What I found was that, when moving the amp, I had inadvertently bumped the switch and had it in bridge mode. Once I corrected that we were looking a lot better. Changed the settings on my sub and have adjusted the treble setting a bit, around a -2.

At this point I am happy with the sound (so far anyway) Running my Polk SDA 2b's I am getting a good wide sound stage. I have noticed a different sound to everything I have played so far. I notice background sounds I had not before. I am no good at trying to describe changes but there is a difference in the sound stage, maybe a bit more mellow which will suit me fine. Since this is the first time I have ever bought a pre-amp I cant and wont make any over-bloated claims about how it compares to any other unit. Compared to using the AVR I would say I am happy with the new pre-amp. It sounds good, it has plenty of inputs for a guy that likes to keep everything simple. I would rate it as a very good buy, at least for me.

Thanks again musichal for the OP and review on this.

 

[nedseg]

Great review/updates - sorry about your mobility challenges, I can relate.

While I have a umc-200, not bas-x, I also have nice things to say (mostly) about emotiva stuff so far, and most of your comments about their UI are dead on: sometimes seems clumsy, with really dense screens, but actually works fine (except for lots of that horrible button pushing exercise!).

I went from a (dead hdmi) Onkyo 906 w/room correction, to the -200, and noticed a marked improvement in sound quality (with and w/o auto room eq on both units) - namely 'cripser' and deeper, sharper bass....really surprised me, as I'd been pretty happy with the Onkyo up til it failed.

Also, to mmic: while I never bothered to repair the 906, it lives on today as a great audio only receiver - belatedly, I found that adding a temperature controlled fan pair placed right on top of it keeps it working fine (for audio).
I just wedged the temp probe inside the back upper vents (above the hdmi cards), and power it from the amps switched AC socket, so set and forget.
(Pretty decent FM tuner on that thing, too...but don't listen to enough to compare to the Emo tuner.)

My biggest challenge with the Emo -200 will be what to replace it with, as I'm planning on moving on to active 3-w EQ, and may want a 'step up' in preamp/AVprocessor/DAC(?) quality, but won't need the PEQs.
Will be curious to see if Emo comes up with a solution for THAT.

Thanks all!

 

[Robie]

To the OP: Thanks for the reviews, most thoughtfully and well written. Trying not to pull the trigger on one of these little buggers as my wife will kill me.

Sorry about the fall and mobility challenges but it seems like you have the will to conquer them.

Best wishes.

 

[orsen]

i have the pt 100 running an emotiva amp and a yamaha, i luv it
just plug and play.... a pc is run into the dac
so here we are a year latter and i couldn't remember what i had the bass and treble set at
so i dig out the remote [pc runs the volume] turns out they are at 0, i have never used the tone controls and never felt i needed to

 

[farr out]

That sounds like a very nice option, especially for the $. Includes a DAC and a versatile phono section. Wow. Add in the fact it has a remote.....

Anyone have any experience with the phono section on the pt-100? I currently have the a-300 and think the pt-100 might be a good upgrade to my current onkyo p-3160. I've been relatively happy with the onkyo, but wonder if I'll notice an improvement with the emotiva? Thanks!

 

[TomBig58]

Thanks for the great review Musichal and others for chiming in. I started a thread awhile back simply looking for a good 2 channel pre with a remote and threw out some possibilities like Luxman, etc. from the 90's and 00's. Others chimed in with possibilities of similar vintage. I'm not sure how I stumbled on the PT-100 and Musichal's (and others) reviews but I ended that thread saying that it was the route I would probably take. A month later I still haven't pulled the trigger. It's a no-brainer because I don't have a DAC and digital ins only on my AV receiver and DVD player. The problem is I don't know which pre or receiver I'm willing to take out of service. I really like all my gear. I hope they don't raise that nice price while I sit on my hands over this.

 

[mmickk]

After having had mine for close to a year now I would have to say that I am still happy with it. For me its biggest plus is its versatility. There is nothing you cant connect to it except hdmi. It does have analog inputs, optical and digital coax sp/dif, DAC, phono pre-amp and blutooth with the optional receiver. It is handy for setting up all kinds of equipment to work together. Not a bad deal for what it costs.

 

[beansprout]

I got the PT-100 and had it for a bout a week. I really like the features and while I haven't done any real critical listening, first impressions are that the sound is good. However, the setup for programming in FM stations and even selecting stations after it's programmed is absolutely terrible. If I knew how bad the interface was, I'd never would have purchased it. Totally not intuitive and the manual does a really bad job explaining it. Emotiva should be embarrassed.

 

[mmickk]

Gotta agree with you 100%. The FM setup scheme it awful. Probably the worse I have ever seen. General setup is not all that intuitive but trying to setup FM access is a near hopeless endeavor.

 

[TomBig58]

Still caught up in my vintage gear I've yet to pull the trigger. I listen to FM a lot, usually the same station but with a remote I would want EZ presets like in the car. How's the reception? Phono stage?

 

[JoeESP9]

I got the PT-100 and had it for a bout a week. I really like the features and while I haven't done any real critical listening, first impressions are that the sound is good. However, the setup for programming in FM stations and even selecting stations after it's programmed is absolutely terrible. If I knew how bad the interface was, I'd never would have purchased it. Totally not intuitive and the manual does a really bad job explaining it. Emotiva should be embarrassed.

I feel the same way about programming FM/AM stations on my UMC-200. I don't need that function. It's just annoying that while all the other functions are easy to set and use the radio station programming sucks.

I use my Accuphase T-101 for FM listening anyway.

 

[musichal]

The last couple days, I played with my Integra cassette deck a little. Whenever I do this - rarely - the Emotiva PT-100's lack of a fixed output annoys the crap out of me. I've been thinking of getting a Nak, too, because I am stupid. I keep looking at the Yamaha AS-300 because it is one of relatively few components that includes two tape loops these days. But then I would not have remote control of a tuner, and, worse (I'm thinking) I'd be changing from the Baby Adcom amp to the Yamaha - in my mind a step down. The Baby and the Fortes play well together in that room.

I have also found that the Emotiva PT-100's remote control is not very friendly for changing stations in the dark if you can't see the display. You need the feedback of sight. I can't read anything on the display of my Sony XDR-F1HD tuner in the living room, either, but it has dedicated preset up/down (and dedicated frequency up/down) buttons - an arrangement which does not require one to read a display - sound is all the feedback you need. So I totally agree with JoeESP9's comment that such arrangements are annoying. When I roll over, half asleep, and want to change stations, well, I rarely do... because I have to get up, stumbling in the dark, one hand on the walker, one with the remote, trying to read with blurry vision, and at risk of a fall.

Why do I belabor the point? Because you think I can deal with that, no biggie but understand the irritation better this way. So make sure you really don't care about a fixed output, or reading a menu to change radio stations, if you contemplate a purchase. Some won't care about either of these things since so many no longer use tape, nor listen to FM, or are a single station devotee. The sound quality is good, imo, and the price great, I've had no service issues, just these two things that do annoy me and prompt me to consider a change. But not quite yet annoyed enough to spend any money, and I do like the sound as it is...