Sound of Gaincard vs. T-amp

[chuck55]

Has anyone compared these two types of amps? Is there a thread? I could not easily find one. Looking for about 6-10 watts to drive an 8 ohm / single driver speaker.
Thanks,
Chuck

[GaryB]

I've compared a friends battery powered Sonic Impact to a number of different amps on his full range Fertins (open baffled) and my full range Altec 755Cs (closed box). The comparison amps included my LM3875 amp (hi cap snubberized), his battery powered LM1875 amp, and several commercial amps both tube and class D.

In two separate listening sessions, the SI was far and away the worst of the bunch. I know that these have gotten great press but based on this limited experience, I can't say I understand why people like these.

---Gary

[Panelhead]

I spent a couple months trying to wring out the SI. They do some things really well, especially after a lot of board work. Like most amps, the power supply is where you start.
But overall, there is a colorization, and light tonal balance. Most serious amps are better.
They would work well as the top end of a biamp setup. The only issue there is the bridged output. They cannot deal with a driver that is grounded, which is what some active crossovers present.
I think a well built gainclone will be better.

George

[dsavitsk]

Just to make this an argument, I have built both a gainclone (actually several) and an Amp1-B from 41Hz.com which is actually a Tripath evaluation board which is a big brother to the SI. I used the same power supply for both (based on CarlosFM's snubberized design).

To my ear, I think the tripath amp is far superior. The GC sounds like a decent solid state amp, but the Tripath has an added level of liquidity and fullness to the sound, especially in the mid bass region. I find the GC to be too dry sounding and overall too hard. The one complaint I can offer about the tripath is that in the treble it can get tizzy and on complex music it can get a little harsh, but overall it is still considerably more enjoyable to listen to. For the single driver sound I would try a Amp3 from 41Hz.

[chuck55]

Right now I have some T-B 871-s speakers and when I have time, will finish my 1320-SB. I was pretty sold on the "T" amp but then heard that gainclones were better so I appreciate the comments here, thanks.

[garbage]

i've built lm3875 gainclones running off 12v sla batteries.
47uF capacitors used on the rails. this drives my 6ohm 93db speakers to high volumes.

the gainclones had tight and fast bass, the highs were a little too harsh to my liking, but still bearable. it exhibited zero noise even with volume maxed out.

the t-amp that i got was a ta2020 kit. running it on one 12v sla using the stock components, bass was weak and bloomy, switching noise was very apparent when volume goes higher, but vocals were sweet.

replaced the two psu caps with 180uF oscons increased the bass dramatically. output caps was changed to bg hi-q nx 0.47uF ones.

i added 0.01uF output caps between speaker terminals as suggested by ta2020 datasheet as this was missing from the pcb. i think this was the mod that eliminated the switching noise. gain was increased from 21.6dB to 27.4dB. i needed more gain as i am running a ta1545 non-OS dac.

i have yet to solder in the bg n 4.7 caps that i want to replace the input caps with, but this t-amp is already sounding very good.

nice bass, sweet vocals. fast enough to cope with rammstein and linkin park. soundstaging is great especially when i play my bluenote trip saturday night LPs.

both gainclone and t-amp are reasonably cheap to build.
maybe you can build both running off 12v sla to do a comparison? the gainclone would need 2 x 12v sla though.

cheers
garbage

[chuck55]

I went the www.tripath.com to get specs on 2020 vs the SI 2024. They have no record of the 2020 chip:

http://www.tripath.com/audio.htm

[garbage]

Originally posted by chuck55
I went the www.tripath.com to get specs on 2020 vs the SI 2024. They have no record of the 2020 chip:

http://www.tripath.com/audio.htm

the ta2020 is discontinued.
google reveals the evaluation board design and also the datasheet.

[mAJORD]

Personally prefer the 2022 over a gianclone, by quite a lot. dont know about a sonic Tamp tho, I would imagine its severe lack of power would be an issue in comparing the too, I too think the amp1 would be a better comparo..

[chuck55]

I may end up trying both but think I will start with the LM3875 (after I finish my speakers). Based on Stereophile's measurements, the Bel Cano "T" amp has a lot of ringing, overshoot on the squarewave, and HF crap over 20kHz which requires filtering.
http://www.stereophile.com/amplifica...42/index5.html

The gaincone does a nicer square wave and rolls off above 20kHz:
http://www.stereophile.com/amplifica...47/index4.html
Too bad the gainclone is harder to build. I wish the sites that offer kits could offer more info for complete novices who need to know 1) what else is needed (torriod, RCA's, power supply) and 2) where to get parts without annoying them with a bunch of e-mails.