chip amp vs t-amp, how do they compare?

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I have been soldering (adding pot/input selector) on several t-amp clones (mainly from Arjen's). T-amps sound very good to my ear playing my fullrange diy speakers. Usually listen to jazz and vocals, no rock, rare orchesteral music.

I am starting to wonder what this chip amp is all about?, gainclone with all different numbers are confusiong to me. I am interested in trying out a basic model (willing to buy a kit and solder...)

what are the sonic differences if any?, any particular kit that I can try?

thanks,
 
T-amp has more detail, better treble especially. It falls terribly short in output power too soon if you want more than moderate sound levels.

Some (depends on the design, when you DIY you have more options) chip amps have more soundstage, tighter bass, but much of this is as mentioned above, more reserve power when it's needed.

I'm not up to date on what the best kit or best bang for the buck is at the moment and you didn't mention which chipamp chip or how elaborate, budget, what speakers it'll be driving, etc.
 
I've thought along the same lines. I might suggest a pair of LM1875s. Plenty of kit choices, and support docs are easy to find. I have an LM1876 and 24VCT transformer in my project queue. It should be a pretty fair contender against my DTA-1 and Lepai TA2024.
 
gychang,

Let me suggest you take a look at the kits available from chipamp.com. Many feel their LM3886 amps are as good as anything available. Assembly is straight forward and simple. I have the dual mono package and the sound quality and power output are excellent.
 
gychang,

Let me suggest you take a look at the kits available from chipamp.com. Many feel their LM3886 amps are as good as anything available. Assembly is straight forward and simple. I have the dual mono package and the sound quality and power output are excellent.

their new website is not fully functional, but will keep checking. Guess one difference is chipamp has to use transformer, where I am used to t-amp clone with just a DC adapter. I am looking for about 25-50w/ch 8ohms, is their a good "beginner's" (<$50) kit somewhere?
 
chipamp can work with a dc adapter(s). You would need 2 24v smps min ( a very popular model on ebay) or to get full pull out of the kits you would need 2 36v adapters. Most 24v supplies can even been adjusted for 20-30v which would make them perfect.

Of course then you switch from a hum problem to a hiss problem...
 
You're basically comparing the worst of the worst of the Tripath based amps against a whole group of amps. And while the t-amp will hold it's own in specific circumstances it's inevitable that headroom will become a problem unless your system is massively horn loaded.

Instead look at the better Tripath options available for example the very high voltage version of the amp11 from 41hz. That's pretty much unbeatable and will get you all what the t-amp is good at just better, and completely make up for it's few short-comings like head-room, as 150W into 8 ohms is easily obtainable.

Chip-amps are basically the t-amp of the last century. They were very good for the price, and still are but they require an extremely stable supply, or you're not going to get much out of them sound quality wise.
 
Hi GY,

No need to buy a kit, there are so few components that a chip amp can be soldered point to point. Have a go at this and see how you get on.

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I bought the LM1876's on eBay for £7 the rest are just pennies, heatsinks from a scrap yard.

Jim

very interesting, is there a pictorial instructions for a newbie with minimal schematic know how?
 
Dear GY,

If you type 'point to point' chip amp into Google lots of info will appear and then compare what you see to the data sheet of the chip you are going to use you will soon get the hang of it.

It's quite difficult to destroy these chips especially if you attach them to the heatsink first and solder one item at a time.

Jim
 
Hi Gychang,

I had the same questions as you so I built several types of amps to compare them directly in my system. A chipamp.com dual mono 3886, a revC amp, and a class D Sure 2 X 100 watt. They all come in costing about the same, if you make your own case expect the final cost to be ~ 130 bucks. The best in my opinion is the RevC amp, it's a very nice amp, it is clearly better than the rest. Unfortunately they are no longer readily available. You may however still be able to get some boards, there are some active threads on it. The Chipamp.com comes in second, I was really surprised how good it sounded. It's very easy to build. I'd say it gives up some soundstage and all around finesse to the RevC, but its still reasonably close. The Sure class D is very easy since the board comes preassembled, I also bought a SMPS power suppy from connexelectric to power it. It's really only ~ 30 - 40 watts, not the 100 watts they advertise so it's power is comparable to a typical chipamp. Without modifications it is clearly not as nice as the chipamp.com amp. But once you bypass the input coupling capacitors with some quality ones the amp really improves. After the mods it is very close in sound quality to the Chipamp.com amp. But if you can get the RevC to build you won't be sorry.

PJN
 
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Dear GY,

Another very interesting site is Mick Feuerbacher's over period of many years he made; a minimalist chip amp, several with larger power supplies and complex circuitry [RevC type of thing] and finally went back to the original chipamp [as per the GainCard] because he said it sounds better.

Mick Feuerbacher Audio Projects the site is very interesting to read and a must for anyone contemplating making a chip amp.

[edit] and ohhh yes Mick shows you in very detailed and very close up photos how to solder the components point to point.

Jim
 
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Chipamp are most certainly not the T-amps of last century. Both have been around for a long time andTrpath is only being discovered by audiophiles by the time the company went bankrupt.

I have had the Trends TA10 as well as higher powered Tripath kits and in the end didn't like them. They sound pretty good initially but over time they are very anemic. The wide soundstage they are known off is false and sounds almost the same for every song you play with them. That's something that start to be anoying after a couple of months.

I also build a Audiosector LM3875 kit wich in my opinion is much better. It seems not as detailed as the T-amps at first but over time you will discover that the T-amps detailing is false and even masks the real details of the music. I have tried modding them but after hearing two other amps with Tripath chips and heard the same artificialness I finally gave up on them. This doesn't show up in A/B tests but after a extended period of listening.

The chipamp is very sensitive to speaker loading, sound great with my 16ohm/97db/w drivers but sounds pretty mediocre to completly crap on some old kef speaker I have.

by the way, my simple ecl82pp amp beats them both but that's a completely different topology
 
gychang,

If you have fair to good soldering skills you can complete two boards in less than one day. I built both the kit version and bought bare boards and did my own parts sourcing. Linuxguru's kits have all you need except the LM3886 and the big caps. Dario has published a build guide for the V1.2 PCB but it is helpful with the other versions also.

If you want to go the bare PCB rout (adds the possibility to customize parts) here is a link to some sourcing helpers I did several months ago.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/chip-amps/134726-new-my-ref-rev-c-thread-125.html#post2531860

The most common mistakes seem to be related to not verifying component values before mounting and mis-orientation of parts with polarities. I've made them all but the design of the MyRef-C is extremely tolerant of build errors. It won't work if something is wrong but usually doesn't usually destroy itself if a mistake is made.

Having a DMM on hand in my mind is a must. It can be an inexpensive $20 RS unit but there are some very good ones in the $60 - $80 range - ala. Home Depot.

Hope you and others give it a try.
 
Sorry to bring up a old topic but I have been wondering about this. I built a My_Ref revC from Twisted Pear back when but broke it messing with a preamp. When my receiver was hit by lightning I bought a LePai 2020. I have Fostex 206E in BLHorns so the low power is not such an issue to me and this TP2020 chip sounds good. It makes me wonder how good a Charlize could sound.
Sjef, I haven't heard of the Trends TA10, does it use the 2020 chip ? Does this chip have something that it's big brothers don't ?
Or should I concentrate on fixing the MyRef ?
 
Squalor,
In my experience, components matter a lot in Tripath amps. The output filter especially. AFAIK the Lepai doesn't have very good components, and I believe it also has a pretty bad-sounding preamp/tone control circuit. You can bypass the tone control circuit, it's an easy mod, and it's probably worthwhile.

More high-quality implementations of the TA2020 will sound better. (And be more reliable.) However, the higher-end Tripath chipsets sound EVEN better. I can enthusiastically recommend amps based on the TK2050 chipset an TA3020 chipsets. If you're looking for a ready-built amp, have a look at Virtue Audio gear. If you're OK with a ready-built board, then Hifimediy T4 is what I would get. (It's higher-powered than their T1 type, but the T4 configuration ought to sound better irrespective of power. Better output transistors, essentially.) My only love, however, is the 41Hz Amp4. It's available in kit form, but you might be able to find a builder. This is a magical little amp. 41Hz Audio:AMP4 kit
 
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