# Kind of cheated... My Scanspeak & Emotiva setup.



## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

I have wanted to have a good reference system in the house for a few years now but never had the desire to make it happen. Car audio really is my priority because I spend so much time in the car and when I'm at home, I don't have much "me" time. You know how it goes.

In December I spotted a set of the Zaph ZRT 2.5's on ebay. They use (2) Scan Rev 7" drivers per tower, paired with the aircirc tweeter. The MSRP on the kit from Madisound is about $2k. I picked up the set, used, for $1250. Score! 
You can find more details on them on Zaph's page:
http://www.zaphaudio.com/ZRT.html

I ordered the emotiva upa-2 amp shortly after the speakers arrived. I ordered and received (today) the xda-1 DAC. I'm running coax out of the m-audio 2496 on the PC to the xda-1 and then to the 2 channel emo amp. Media is handled through iTunes. At least for now. It works well for me because I can use the iphone to remotely control my media selection and stream it off the imac downstairs.

My impressions are:
Nice!
But, I have a lot of different feelings about it. I think it's most certainly accurate. Measured damn near ruler flat from 50-10khz when taken outside. Inside, it's still really nice. I need to add some spot treatment here and there and you can see they're backed off the wall a good bit to help smooth the response some more. Overall, I'm very pleased. A level of detail like I've never heard before but they don't jump out at me. The cool part is I can crank it up and they keep their composure at levels well above 90dB, from about 12' away. Zaph built them with low distortion in mind and calls them his best overall performers (not best for the money, but you get the idea). Excellent reference setup. 


Here's some rag tag pictures of the setup:




















The JL sub is currently non functional. Hope to resolve that soon if the pre-outs on the upa-2 are worth a damn. So far I've not had much luck using them to the ep2500; not sure if it's just the low level pass through or what. I need to RTFM on the upa-2 regarding this.
Once I get the connection issue resolved, I'll start testing it in the room for the best location and if I have the time I'll provide some of the testing results via RTA.



Side Rant: The guy who sold me the set didn't have one of the mids connected. I kept listening last night and couldn't figure out wtf was going on but I knew something was up. Started putting my ear next to each speaker and realized one of the mids wasn't working. Had to go buy damn security bits to remove the driver only to find that he messed up the freakin' hurricane nuts so I had to set the speaker on a rack, upside down, and let gravity help me remove two of the damn screws. 
However, the set showed up damaged from shipping. One of the cabs was beat up pretty badly. The seller refunded me the cost of a new cab so that's OK. Good on him. 




In short, though I didn't put this set of speakers together like my DIY nature says to, at $1250 it was too good of a deal to pass up and the parts alone are worth that. If anyone in the area wants a demo sometime, hit me up.


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## ErinH (Feb 14, 2007)

Close up picture of the towers when they were downstairs


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## dvflyer (May 11, 2007)

Another Emotiva fan here.

I have the MPS-1/ DMC-1 combo with my Rocket RS850s/ RSC200.


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## alpinem (Nov 25, 2006)

NICE


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## thehatedguy (May 4, 2007)

Erin, you shoot me a PM on your thoughts between the Revelators and the Illuminator mids? Now that you have both....


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## pionkej (Feb 29, 2008)

Glad to see you finally got it running...and that you went with the Emotiva amps. 

Now I *have* to make a drive down there sometime soon just to check the setup out.


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## stereo_luver (Oct 30, 2007)

I have absolutely nothing bad to say about Emotiva. I know the company well and have used a few pieces of the gear. BUT...I'd suggest trying something different in a pre/pro and amp combo to really hear those puppies sing.

Chuck


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## s4turn (Jun 17, 2009)

thats an amazing price you got them for, theres so many little extras that are needed and all add up! let alone the xover components and driver cost!


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## jrgreene1968 (Jul 7, 2008)

nice setup..i also use an emo amp..i tried there pre/pro, but had all sorts of issues, so went back to using my onkyo 805 as a pre/pro. The emo amps pack some punch for sure...im running klipsch reference speakers, and a svs sub..my dogs hate it when i pop a movie in


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