Yes, I bought one of those last year, dont expect much from it... I would rather go for this one Which its Just a little bit more expensive...
MKII TA2024
I have one in the post... I hope it arrives next week, so I can finish some Bluetooth speakers...
WHO CARES whether this or that amp is a Class D or a Chip Amp or whether this is "only" X percent efficient? Or whether it has GOT to be trash since the white paper doesn't show this or that certain specification. And if the post should fall into a certain category under a forum?
Several of you guys have got the point that the two amps pointed out here are less than a so-called "lunch" at a fast food joint.
As for the others, like so often on forums, they seem to be dwelling on minutiae and proving how "smart" they are. OK fine, you are smarter than I. Happy now?
Get over yourselves, build something or at least assemble it. And HAVE FUN!
If the moderator wants to move it, fine. I could care less. And I could also care less if you think I'm stupid because I don't know the difference.
The rest of you guys who "get it" no doubt peruse both chip amp and class D sections anyway. I appreciate the gent who posted about the other six buck amp and X who pointed out the interesting NPR thing about the bees.
It's called a discussion forum for a reason.
It's not a soapbox for the intellectually "superior" to lord over the rest of us.
Mark
Several of you guys have got the point that the two amps pointed out here are less than a so-called "lunch" at a fast food joint.
As for the others, like so often on forums, they seem to be dwelling on minutiae and proving how "smart" they are. OK fine, you are smarter than I. Happy now?
Get over yourselves, build something or at least assemble it. And HAVE FUN!
If the moderator wants to move it, fine. I could care less. And I could also care less if you think I'm stupid because I don't know the difference.
The rest of you guys who "get it" no doubt peruse both chip amp and class D sections anyway. I appreciate the gent who posted about the other six buck amp and X who pointed out the interesting NPR thing about the bees.
It's called a discussion forum for a reason.
It's not a soapbox for the intellectually "superior" to lord over the rest of us.
Mark
I have a similar chip amp (lower Pout, but from the same family) powered by an over-sized linear supply and it sounds surprisingly good. I mentioned a thread move only to aid getting the word out to the chip amp junkies. This thing makes the Lepai LP-2020 look like an extravagance, and probably rivals the performance.
Now Sofaspud,
When you say linear power supply do you mean what I'll call (for lack of my understanding) a "conventional" power supply. Like CLC or CRC? As in -- not a switch mode/computer type power supply?
Mark
The reason I stress that efficiency is 4 times worse than a comparable class D amp is that many of such amps are sold for the 12V portable market. And here it will have a huge impact on battery life is it's one or the other type. So the $6 amp here could very fast end up costing much more than a $20 class D amp because you need a 4 times larger battery to get the same run time.
Btw, here a big meal at McD/BK is $15. Lots of even rather good class D amps fall into the "less than a fast food meal" category.
Btw, here a big meal at McD/BK is $15. Lots of even rather good class D amps fall into the "less than a fast food meal" category.
The amperage could depend on your speaker impedance or could depend on the chip. If you have 8R speakers then the maximum current you could run through them from the chip would be 1.5A from 12V, even assuming that the chip could swing to the rails (which none can to my knowledge). So then 3A would be more than adequate as a supply. If your speakers are lower than 8R then the chip limits at 2A per channel, so 4A is the upper limit of what you'd need.
What determines SQ is the impedance of the supply. Get some local decoupling in place on the board - I use paralleled 10uF 1206 25V ceramics and they give a ridiculously clean supply at high freqs, far and away better than anything else. Add lots of paralleled 2,200uF electrolytics (as many as you dare, I've gone up to a hundred or so on my chipamp) for the low freq performance
Saturnus,
Oh, I see about the efficiency. Thanks for the education. I'm just learning.
I remember food being quite expensive in Copenhagen when I was lucky enough to visit many years ago. I loved it there nonetheless. There were NO McDonalds or Burger Kings then. (And that's one of the things that made it so nice!)
Everyone,
I'd be interested in knowing your particular favorite class D or chip amp --- regardless of cost.
I think so far mine are (no particular order or classification):
Winsome Mouse
Jerry's Electronics Amp
Sure Electronics TK-2050 (They list it as 2X100 Watt)
These ones, to me, have an excellent tone and don't make you want to go screaming from the room and grab one of your tube amps.
Mark
TDA8566 (about $6 from Mouser for the chip) - details on my blog. Sounds like a tube amp, even better than a tube amp in the bass with decent power supply.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/blogs/abraxalito/960-high-end-chipamp-build-project.html . Since I wrote this I've found that the PSU on this schematic wasn't extreme enough so I'll be putting up another post in a while to explain how I've improved it.
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There's a link that says: Blog entries under his location.
My favorite class D amp is the amp6b from 41hz.com. It's a kit so you have to solder it together yourself, and there are a few SMD components but it's really easy none-the-less. It's also available in assembled version though. In either case you have to supply your own case and so on.
The reason it's my favorite is that it's a fantastic all-rounder. It might not do everything the absolute best when compared to real multi-$1000 hi-end amps but it's always better in some area.
The other point is that it uses almost no power. My entire system (which is just the amp6b and a USB DAC) uses less than 1W on average, so my power supply is a 14W solar panel, a LiFePO4 battery and a 1F cap. It's run non-stop on that for 5 years.
Naturally, using an amp that only gives 8W per channel in 8 ohms requires a highly sensitive speaker like my Fostex FE206 BLHs but that would be no different for a class A solid state or tube amp (both of which I've had in the past).
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Mark, yes it is an IMPORTANT DISTINCTION... its important for people other than yourself so they can find it in the correct section for time to come, should they know what the sections mean; rather than adding to the refuse of completely useless threads people start every day...
this is a communal forum, not your personal technology oracle. efficiency makes the difference whether the heatsink is under dimensioned and whether the amp as supplied will fry eggs before putting anything close to the power it claims.
from where i'm standing its you on the soap box.
this is a technical forum, presumably thats why you came here in the first place, it is what it is and people will correct misinformation when they see it. this is a good thing IMO, though i'm noticing more and more people getting annoyed by people setting things straight, preferring anecdotes to factual accounts etc.
$6 or $100 makes little difference to me if i'm going to bother putting in the time to build something. if its a piece of crap that doesnt do what it claims, its a waste of $6 and time, not a bargain.
this is a communal forum, not your personal technology oracle. efficiency makes the difference whether the heatsink is under dimensioned and whether the amp as supplied will fry eggs before putting anything close to the power it claims.
from where i'm standing its you on the soap box.
this is a technical forum, presumably thats why you came here in the first place, it is what it is and people will correct misinformation when they see it. this is a good thing IMO, though i'm noticing more and more people getting annoyed by people setting things straight, preferring anecdotes to factual accounts etc.
$6 or $100 makes little difference to me if i'm going to bother putting in the time to build something. if its a piece of crap that doesnt do what it claims, its a waste of $6 and time, not a bargain.
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