Emotiva
Direct-to-consumer amplification and cinema processing, specified and installed as part of a system.
About
Emotiva was founded by Dan Laufman on a straightforward premise: that a great deal of what a high-end audio product costs has nothing to do with how it sounds. The company designs in Nashville and sells direct, skipping the retail layer that sits between most manufacturers and the people who end up listening. It runs deliberately lean, and it builds equipment meant to be kept — chassis and modules that can be upgraded rather than replaced when the format changes.
The range is organized by intent rather than by category. BasX is the accessible end, where the engineering goes into the parts of a product that affect the sound and very little goes anywhere else. The X-Series covers the multichannel power amplifiers most home theaters are built around. Differential Reference is the fully balanced, no-compromise tier for two-channel. Airmotiv is the loudspeaker line, Nostala the newest of it. Their cinema processors sit at the center of a large immersive system and run Dirac Live for room correction.
TekScene is part of Emotiva's integrator program, which means we can specify, source and install Emotiva as part of a designed system rather than leaving you to assemble one. We do that for homeowners across South Carolina and the Columbia area — Chapin, Lexington, Irmo, West Columbia, and Lake Murray.
Why Buy Emotiva Through TekScene
- Expert selection — we match amplification and processing to your speakers, room and layout rather than to a channel count on a box.
- Professional installation and integration — racking, wiring, configuration and setup handled as one job.
- Complete system design — processor, amplification, speakers and room correction specified together, so nothing becomes the weak link.
- Local support — we are in South Carolina, and a system we installed is a system we can come back to.
Frequently Asked Questions
Emotiva sells direct, so why involve an integrator at all?
You are right that you do not have to. Emotiva is direct-to-consumer by design, their support is genuinely good, and if you are comfortable choosing the right amplifier for your speakers, sizing it to your room, and installing and configuring it yourself, buying direct is a perfectly sensible route. We would rather say that plainly than pretend otherwise.
What an integrator adds is the part before and after the box arrives: deciding which amplifier the speakers and the room actually call for, how many channels the layout needs now and later, how it fits with the processor and the rest of the rack, and then installing and setting it all up as one job. Most of the value is in the specification, not the transaction.
How do the Emotiva lines fit together?
BasX is the entry point, built around the idea that a product's cost should go into the things that change how it sounds. The X-Series is the multichannel amplification most home theater systems are built on, scaling by channel count. Differential Reference is the fully balanced top tier, aimed at two-channel listening where the last increment matters.
Airmotiv is the loudspeaker side of the house, with Nostala the most recent addition, and the cinema processors anchor larger immersive rooms. In practice a system rarely uses one line exclusively — a processor from one, amplification from another, and in many of our installations speakers from somewhere else entirely.
Why use a separate power amplifier instead of an AV receiver?
Because a receiver is several products sharing one power supply and one chassis. Its advertised power is measured into 8 ohms with two channels driven, so with every channel working there is considerably less available per channel than the number suggests, and loads below 8 ohms are where it gives out first.
A separate amplifier removes that constraint, and it also lets the processor and the amplification be replaced on different schedules — processing goes out of date with each format change, while a good amplifier does not. Whether you actually need one depends on the speakers.
How much amplifier power do I actually need?
Less than most people assume, and it depends on three things: how sensitive the speakers are, how far away you sit, and how loud you genuinely listen. Sensitivity does most of the work — every 3 dB is half the power for the same level — and distance does most of the rest, since every doubling of it costs 6 dB, which is four times the power.
Our Audio Power Calculator will put a number on it for your speakers and your room. Treat the result as the requirement and shop above it, because the figure on an amplifier's specification sheet is measured under conditions kinder than a surround mix.
Do Emotiva processors work with Dirac Live?
Yes, and the licensing is unusually generous. Emotiva state that their current cinema processors include a license to the full version of Dirac Live Room Correction — every channel, across the full frequency range — where a bandwidth-limited license with the full version sold as a paid upgrade is the common arrangement elsewhere.
Room Correction is the whole of it, though: neither Dirac Live Bass Control nor Active Room Treatment is part of the current lineup. Both arrive with the incoming LX series, where Emotiva specify the LXP-16 as shipping with a full prepaid license to the complete suite — Room Correction, Bass Control and Active Room Treatment — along with a calibrated measurement microphone, and Dirac have named an LXR-11 on the same footing. Having ART licensed in the box rather than bought separately is rare enough to be worth planning around, though both are listed as coming rather than shipping, so confirm where they stand before building a room on the assumption. Dirac's own compatibility list is the place to check what any given unit runs today.
We sell Dirac licenses and do the measurement and calibration, so the Dirac Live page is worth reading alongside this one.
Is Emotiva wasted on very efficient speakers?
No, though the reason to choose it changes. With a high-sensitivity speaker you are not buying watts — a genuinely efficient design reaches reference level on a fraction of what a typical tower needs, and raw power stops being the limiting factor.
What still matters is how cleanly the amplifier behaves into a difficult load with every channel working, and how much headroom is left when a transient arrives. That is the argument for separate amplification with efficient speakers, and it is a different argument from the one people usually make for a big amplifier.
Let's Design the System Around the Room
Tell us about your room and what you want it to do, and we will specify the Emotiva electronics that suit it.