For all T-amp tweakers

[filholder]

Dont know if this is any interest to you guys but tnt-audio have a large article on tweaking the t-amp. Might be of some interest.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/t-amp_tweaks_e.html

Fil

[alcar]

Thanks filholder. I'm about to mod one, and the tnt tutorial makes it look pretty easy.

[filholder]

To be honest i posted when i found the article and hadnt fully read it.

I looks more like a re-housing article and doesn got into great depth about tweaking and psu choices etc. However yeah looks like a useful starting point.

fil

[alcar]

Yeah, a starting point was all I was looking for . It's for a second (bedroom) system,so I'll probably get round to swapping the inductors and supply caps later ,but I've already got a 50k Alps pot and a 13.8 regulated supply, so I'll just rehouse it for now. And change the input caps. I'm using an old Marantz CD player which cost £300 years ago, and is probably worth about £30 now, and the unmodded £30 T-amp to burn in a pair of Tannoy M2.5s I got from www.richersounds.com for £60 a few days ago. £120 worth of audio equipment should'nt sound this good!.

[filholder]

That what this dit stuff is all about though. My current system is a arcam alpha 5 which i found thrown out froma hifi shop. Fixed it and tweaked heavily, a set off lm3886 carlos snubberised monoblock which cost about £120 all in for a pair and a set of kef floor stander which i got for £100 a few years ago. I also built a nuuk buffered preamp with remote control input and volume usin nuuks cicuit and a $35 board i got from hong kong. All in to me anyway it sounds like no hifi i have heard. And cost maybe £300 tops, i love this new hobby!!!.

Anyway yeah i just order a couple fo t-amps from teh states and should get them this week. I will see how they sound then work out what to do with them, if they can be made to sound better than my gainclone tehy can got in my system if not i might build one amp for my PC for gaming and another as a system for when we go camping.

Or i might try biamping my Kef's if the biamping posts arent connected internally.

Fil

[alcar]

Fil, Did you get your amps from Thinkgeek?. I got a pair from them for £60, delivered in a couple of days. They don't post EMS, only DHL or another courier. Then I received a bill this morning fom DHL for another £12.30 customs duty!

Total=£72.30.No big deal, they are great little amps well worth the money, but I also bought a pair of the Amp3 kits from www.41hz.com at £44 for the pair. Considering most of the people who have been good enough to post their experiences on modding the T amp reckon the pot, inductors and a few caps have to go, the Amp3 kit seems like the best deal. (If you're in the UK). Only problem is you have to build it. I have'nt soldered SMD components before, so this should be a laugh . Some of the components don't seem much bigger than a flea!.

al

[filholder]

Hi Alcar,

No i ended up buying mine from ebay, the seller garanteed no vat etc. and all in cost £53 for a pair. The sellers id is xpcreation for future reference.

I may well buy a pair of the Amp3 kits at some point, they seem excellent value and almost certainly better designed.

Yeah the SMD stuff looks great fun (not) but i have done a few bits and bobs with smd before and it worked.

To be honest though for the moment i am gonna play with my little Si boxes and see how they sound, only had them a day and want to see what they are like when they break in. Alos want to trying some different PSu setups since i have been lucky enough to get 2 interesting setup free in the last month. Pulled a 2u firewall out of a skip the other day and that has an excellent quality SMPS in it. This is what i have started using on the t-amp. I also pulled a couple of 7.2ah 12v alarm batteries out of a skip the other day. Both seem fine and i have built a lead to power the t-amp with it. Howver for the time being i will keep using the SMPS to break it in, easier since i dont have a 12v SLA charger yet and i dont want to buy one if i prefer the otehr option.


We will see, only i can say at the moment is that just linked up to an ipod and a set of old kef coda7's the t-amp really is rather good.

Will try it in my main system later.

fil

[Vix]

Hi

I got my T-amp some time ago, and I can say that I am disapointed. The small amp, while having very clear sound, is also harsh. After half an hour I got ringing in my ears; it is very annoying. The sound is tiny and metallic. (wiring is ok-it is not out of phase)
I tried the t-amp with B&W DM 601 S3 and with Fostex FE206E in ML TL enclosure. Disgusting.

I really don't understand why are so many folks happy about it. To me T-amp sounds worse than my PASS ZEN, worse that NAD 3020, even worse that my GC with lm3886.

FYI, I am powering it with 11 AH SLA battery, which charges when the amp is off.

Did anyone experience this?

Can this be cured with some simple modification?

regards,

Vix

[sx881663]

Originally posted by Vix
Hi


Did anyone experience this?

Can this be cured with some simple modification?


Vix

Yes, they are nasty sounding till they are completely broken in. This takes upwards of 100 hours. Also they do not like complex speaker loads. Simple full range drivers with them can make magic after all the mods are done. I suspect some of the speaker sensitivity would be improved with better output inductors.
Roger

[CambshireGordon]

Originally posted by alcar
Fil, Did you get your amps from Thinkgeek?. I got a pair from them for £60, delivered in a couple of days. They don't post EMS, only DHL or another courier. Then I received a bill this morning fom DHL for another £12.30 customs duty!

Total=£72.30.No big deal, they are great little amps well worth the money, but I also bought a pair of the Amp3 kits from www.41hz.com at £44 for the pair. Considering most of the people who have been good enough to post their experiences on modding the T amp reckon the pot, inductors and a few caps have to go, the Amp3 kit seems like the best deal. (If you're in the UK). Only problem is you have to build it. I have'nt soldered SMD components before, so this should be a laugh . Some of the components don't seem much bigger than a flea!.

al

i agree they are great little amps with a lot of potential. I got 4 from PartsExpress for 152.00 U$D in mid June. Had to pay Customs VAT + clearance charge of £22.41 to Parcel Force. Still, it worked out at £27.26 per SI - not too bad a price. However, I have since ordered 2 Class-T-amp-2002 kits from Autocostruire [www.autocostruire.com] because these are based on similar technology, do not use SMD's but use better quality components from the start. Hopefully, they should be easier to build! (They also do a nice looking valve pre-amp).

Originally posted by filholder
Hi Alcar,

Yeah the SMD stuff looks great fun (not) but i have done a few bits and bobs with smd before and it worked.
..... Pulled a 2u firewall out of a skip the other day and that has an excellent quality SMPS in it. This is what i have started using on the t-amp. I also pulled a couple of 7.2ah 12v alarm batteries out of a skip the other day. Both seem fine and i have built a lead to power the t-amp with it.
fil

How lucky! No such skips in my area for me to scavenge! My 4 SI's are now well "broken-in". I agree that modding the little beasts looks great fun - not! That's why I have ordered 2 x Class-t-amp-2020 kits, see above. Maybe the SI's will not get modded!

Originally posted by Vix
Hi

I got my T-amp some time ago, and I can say that I am disapointed. The small amp, while having very clear sound, is also harsh. After half an hour I got ringing in my ears; it is very annoying. The sound is tiny and metallic. (wiring is ok-it is not out of phase)
I tried the t-amp with B&W DM 601 S3 and with Fostex FE206E in ML TL enclosure. Disgusting.
I really don't understand why are so many folks happy about it. To me T-amp sounds worse than my PASS ZEN, worse that NAD 3020, even worse that my GC with lm3886.
FYI, I am powering it with 11 AH SLA battery, which charges when the amp is off.
Did anyone experience this?
Can this be cured with some simple modification?
regards,
Vix

I was impressed right away with the clarity from these SI's and I agree, after that initial impression, I noticed the sound was 'bright' and may be bass light; I am not sure I would say the sound was harsh. However, now that I have them broken-in (over the past month), they now sound much more mellow. Of course, these are subjective opinions, not substantiated by any scientific analysis. I am using only one SI to drive a pair of Quad ELS63's AND a B&W passive sub with very good results - yes, I think a bit more reserve power would be useful, but they still play fairly loud in my 12 x 22 x 8 foot room. My plan is (was?) to double up the output power by using one SI to drive the ELS's and another the sub. I may now do this with the Autocostrurie's.
There are plenty of threads on this site about modding the SI amps with good reports from those who have done so. Let us not forget that these little stock SI's have been built to a (low) price, so some good quality replacement components and a bit of re-wiring etc should work magic. They look great fun to play with so good luck with your modding!
CambshireGordon