Hi, my name is Dr. Llew Williams; I am retired from my former position as the Senior Science Advisor to the Director of U.S. EPA's National Enviromental Monitoring Laboratory. It has been a lot of years since I put together integrated amplifiers from kits or worked out the crossover network requirements for speaker systems I was assembling. I played upright bass in a musical group for years, and still build golf clubs and fishing tackle.
In my scannings for low-cost, low-power amps, I was led to this forum, and the more threads I read, the more I learned and the more impressed I became with the participants on this forum. I just tried a new SI T-Amp and loved the clean sound it gave me running my Sony CD/DVD player through it with new JBL Control1Xtreme speakers (as suggested by one of the forum members). Those speakers are not that sensitive, so I was a bit disappointed with the low end. If I have to rig up a powered sub-woofer, it will have defeated the whole idea. Is there anything reasonable (<$50) out there among the passive speakers that would be sensitive enough to give a bit of low end with 5 or so watts of power?
Your recommendations for bolstering the power output of the T-Amp will also be greatly appreciated. The sound with 8 NiMH AA's was clean, but I'm sure some of my lower-end disappointment might be solved by pumping more power out with a better power supply. If I wired up speakers in parallel to drop the impedance, will I gain significantly more power (without upping noise levels)?
THanks for receiving me into your group. Hopefully over time, I'll be able to give back!
Llew in Naples Florida
In my scannings for low-cost, low-power amps, I was led to this forum, and the more threads I read, the more I learned and the more impressed I became with the participants on this forum. I just tried a new SI T-Amp and loved the clean sound it gave me running my Sony CD/DVD player through it with new JBL Control1Xtreme speakers (as suggested by one of the forum members). Those speakers are not that sensitive, so I was a bit disappointed with the low end. If I have to rig up a powered sub-woofer, it will have defeated the whole idea. Is there anything reasonable (<$50) out there among the passive speakers that would be sensitive enough to give a bit of low end with 5 or so watts of power?
Your recommendations for bolstering the power output of the T-Amp will also be greatly appreciated. The sound with 8 NiMH AA's was clean, but I'm sure some of my lower-end disappointment might be solved by pumping more power out with a better power supply. If I wired up speakers in parallel to drop the impedance, will I gain significantly more power (without upping noise levels)?
THanks for receiving me into your group. Hopefully over time, I'll be able to give back!
Llew in Naples Florida
Welcome to the forum llew.
Your lack of bass with the cheap SI t-AMP is something inherent in the amp because they input caps are of such a size that the amp starts rolling off below 100 Hz. If you mod the amp with larger input caps bass cabn be improved considerably. There is also 1 othe cap recommended -- a local poswer supply resevoir cap near the chip. These mods mean recasing the amplifier, but that is a good idea anyway, allowing better I/O hardware and replacement of the pot (either with a better one or a fixed R).
I haven't done any of these mods on mine, instead just buying a better executed version of the amp (Trends 1A10) since it is handy to have an amp around to mate with my iPod in the event of a power failure.
dave
Your lack of bass with the cheap SI t-AMP is something inherent in the amp because they input caps are of such a size that the amp starts rolling off below 100 Hz. If you mod the amp with larger input caps bass cabn be improved considerably. There is also 1 othe cap recommended -- a local poswer supply resevoir cap near the chip. These mods mean recasing the amplifier, but that is a good idea anyway, allowing better I/O hardware and replacement of the pot (either with a better one or a fixed R).
I haven't done any of these mods on mine, instead just buying a better executed version of the amp (Trends 1A10) since it is handy to have an amp around to mate with my iPod in the event of a power failure.
dave
Hi, welcome! 
Only in a very small listening room. The CSS FR125 can go really low, so can a few Aurasound and Tang band. But to go low, they trade efficiency. Hence the need for a small room with only 5 watts.
If you have a larger listening room, you'll need expensive speakers in BIG cabs to extend them. Checkout Planet10's site for those plans.
Cheers!
Only in a very small listening room. The CSS FR125 can go really low, so can a few Aurasound and Tang band. But to go low, they trade efficiency. Hence the need for a small room with only 5 watts.
If you have a larger listening room, you'll need expensive speakers in BIG cabs to extend them. Checkout Planet10's site for those plans.
Cheers!
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