SI Gen 2 T-Amp - Fried by speaker lead short?

[phageghost]

Hi guys (and any gals). New forum member here.

First a big thanks for sharing so much knowledge with the community; I've learned a lot just by lurking in the past few weeks.

Now my question:

I recently picked up a Sonic Impact T-amp Gen 2 from thinkgeek to power my Klipsch Forte Is until I can get the rest of my system put together. Got it going and was suitably impressed with the sound out of this little box, like so many before me. Noticed it was starting to sound better as I broke it in over the weekend. But . . .

After leaving it on overnight with the volume down and no source playing, I noticed that the speaker leads to one channel had come undone from the speaker binding posts (I'm not very good at getting bare wire tightened properly!). I immediately powered off the amp and reconnected the speaker. After watching some football I went to play some music and noticed that the midrange was distorting horribly. I could still make out the music but it was unlistenable. The distortion seems to be confined to the midrange and exists on both channels. I get the same awful sound out of the headphone jack so I'm relieved that my speakers appear to be OK, but it looks like I've done some permanent damage to the amp, either through the speaker wires shorting when they came loose, or just a general failure of the amp. I opened it up to see if anything was obviously amiss like a burnt trace or bad solder joints but everything looks good to my eye. Powered off for a day and still has the distortion.

I've also got a Sure Tripath amp (the one preinstalled into an enclosure) on the way from China that I was going to compare it to, so that will be my backup, but is there anything obvious that I might be able to do to fix the T-amp or is it most likely toast?

Thanks!

[Saturnus]

It's toast. Enjoy your Sure amp (and don't make the same mistake on that).

[phageghost]

Thanks! That's pretty much what I figured. Just hopeful, I guess. At least the new amp will allow me to use proper bananas so I can minimize the chances of a recurrence . . .

Now I just have to not damage it while doing the recommended mods. LOL.

Take care,

[nigelwright7557]

Could be the MOSFETs have blown.
Check across D-S for a short on them.

[Saturnus]

Originally Posted by nigelwright7557

Could be the MOSFETs have blown.
Check across D-S for a short on them.

There aren't external mosfets on a TA2024 based amp.

[nigelwright7557]

Originally Posted by Saturnus

There aren't external mosfets on a TA2024 based amp.

Is the IC in a socket ?

[Saturnus]

Originally Posted by nigelwright7557

Is the IC in a socket ?

No, it has solder tap on the bottom (meaning the entire bottom of the chip is soldered directly to the ground plane of the PCB for cooling).

[phageghost]

Originally Posted by nigelwright7557

Is the IC in a socket ?

From what I remember when I had it open last night, no it's soldered directly to the PCB. Based on the fact that the problem is in both channels makes me think the IC itself got whacked since I don't think anything downstream of that is shared (could be wrong). And the tripath chip doesn't seem replaceable (by me at least).

[jrcanoe]

Just swap in a new < 20$ board from Parts Ex, Shure or Arjen you could be back up in less than a hour. At the cabin I have a pair of Heresy's driven by a modded a PE board in a little wood box That tickles me every time I turn it on.

[phageghost]

Originally Posted by jrcanoe

Just swap in a new < 20$ board from Parts Ex, Shure or Arjen you could be back up in less than a hour. At the cabin I have a pair of Heresy's driven by a modded a PE board in a little wood box That tickles me every time I turn it on.

Thanks, but as I noted I have a Sure amp (in their own enclosure) already on its way. If I was going to drop in a new board I'd put it in a better enclosure than the Sonic Impact (i.e. something with real speaker binding posts and RCA jacks), which the Sure amp already accomplished for me without needing to muck about with assembly so I can get back to hearing those lovely Klipsches as soon as possible! I know it's heresy(!) for a DIY forum but I'll get plenty of DIY-time when I mod the Sure. For sure.

Thanks for your help folks!