I got excited about this amp, but I think that I am going to pass on it. I remember when they were on audiosources page and then disspeared. I beleive it was like in 2001.
Why did that seller even say that it comes with a warranty card.
Yes that is true, but if it is not valid then he misleading people.
Jeff P
Why did that seller even say that it comes with a warranty card.
Yes that is true, but if it is not valid then he misleading people.
Jeff P
jeffrae said:
It wouldn't be the first time someone posted misleading info to make a profit.
Anywho, I seem to be a gluten for punishment because I went ahead and placed my order for 3. I know I REALLY shouldn't have, but I did. I'm sure I will regret it later.
Oh well, if the amps die I will have 3 nice chassis with power supplies(trying to think positive).
Cool. I would not want to die alone....
Hopefully, it was a weird set of circumstances for the reliability problems noted so far.
I would like to know the whole story of these things though. Seems strange they made a bunch of them, they sit in a corner of a warehouse somewhere for 6 or 7 years, (with no marketing!) and then they wind up in someones garage for a future on ebay.
The EU story of solder only holds up in the EU. Why did they never sell them in the US? Hmmmmmm. I don't work for NASA, but I could hazard a guess....
Almost have half a mind to call the distributer of the *real* product line and see if they know anything.
Anyone able to come up with a schematic?
Hopefully, it was a weird set of circumstances for the reliability problems noted so far.
I would like to know the whole story of these things though. Seems strange they made a bunch of them, they sit in a corner of a warehouse somewhere for 6 or 7 years, (with no marketing!) and then they wind up in someones garage for a future on ebay.
The EU story of solder only holds up in the EU. Why did they never sell them in the US? Hmmmmmm. I don't work for NASA, but I could hazard a guess....
Almost have half a mind to call the distributer of the *real* product line and see if they know anything.
Anyone able to come up with a schematic?
I have always wanted to get a chasse just like my amp three to mount my Slim Devices Squeezebox in...
Do you think AudioSource is Done?
I have been happy with my Audiosource Amp 3 and I am worried that Phoenix Gold is trying to kill the company.
They have great bang for the buck in my opinion...
Good luck with yours.. Let us know how they are... Maybe if enough people are happy with them and there is one left on Ebay, I will go for it..
Jeff
Do you think AudioSource is Done?
I have been happy with my Audiosource Amp 3 and I am worried that Phoenix Gold is trying to kill the company.
They have great bang for the buck in my opinion...
Good luck with yours.. Let us know how they are... Maybe if enough people are happy with them and there is one left on Ebay, I will go for it..
Jeff
My three amigos have arrived!!!!
I just got finished testing them and they all work just fine!!!! No humming noise either like I was worried about.
amt forgot to mention a VERY simple but VERY handy part of these amps. On the bottom of the chassis there is a removable plate that lets you gain access to the bottom of the amp board without having to remove the board. Maybe Audiosource knew they would need to quickly gain access for repairs, or maybe they did it for the tweakers. I dunno.
I will post some detailed pics of the inside along with anything interesting I notice once I open one up. Until then, I'm gonna go listen to some music.
I just got finished testing them and they all work just fine!!!! No humming noise either like I was worried about.
amt forgot to mention a VERY simple but VERY handy part of these amps. On the bottom of the chassis there is a removable plate that lets you gain access to the bottom of the amp board without having to remove the board. Maybe Audiosource knew they would need to quickly gain access for repairs, or maybe they did it for the tweakers. I dunno.
I will post some detailed pics of the inside along with anything interesting I notice once I open one up. Until then, I'm gonna go listen to some music.
Now thats a pile o' amps. And I didnt notice the removal bottom plate but that is very nice. Should make it ideal for upgrading and tweakability.
Ive spent some time with it now and think its a good sounding amp, but the jury still isnt in. Ive used it with my high efficiency speakers and the amp sounds very mediocre at this point. This is using a whopping 10-20 watts I guess. Now when I get it rolling on my Magnepans, it begins to sound quite good. Not sure if it just needs to operate at a higher output for best performance or maybe a 4 ohm load suits it better.
In any event, for the price its unbeatable. Runs cool and efficiently and is built solid. So I will be happy if it is just reliable.
amt
Ive spent some time with it now and think its a good sounding amp, but the jury still isnt in. Ive used it with my high efficiency speakers and the amp sounds very mediocre at this point. This is using a whopping 10-20 watts I guess. Now when I get it rolling on my Magnepans, it begins to sound quite good. Not sure if it just needs to operate at a higher output for best performance or maybe a 4 ohm load suits it better.
In any event, for the price its unbeatable. Runs cool and efficiently and is built solid. So I will be happy if it is just reliable.
amt
I took the top off one to take a look. They did a decent job with this amp. I've seen much worse.
The power supply has 2x10,000uf 80v Elna caps per rail. It also has 0.1uf and 0.1uf+R? on each rail. I don't like how the power wires are routed to the board; they are bundled together with the speaker wires. They look like they can be moved to the other side of the heatsink out of the way.
The input coupling caps are 47uf 25v Elna Cerafine. There is also what looks like a R/L input filter consisting of 2 film caps and one aircore inductor per channel.
On the board by the input connection there is a NE5532 opamp. I'm sure this is the buffer/voltage gain for the input. This is probably the first thing I'm going to change. I have a pile of OPA2134.There are also two chips labeled "4558DD" that I'm guessing are NJM4558. I have no clue what they are for.
The TA0104A is in a socket, so if for some horrible reason it ever dies it can at least be easily changed(if you can find another). It looks like the amp board was made for a high power configuration. There are empty spots for extra output devices for each rail.
Oh, and if one wanted to bypass the 100kA pots on the front panel all it requires is a quick switch of two connectors.
My cameras battery is dead so I'll have to take pics later.
The power supply has 2x10,000uf 80v Elna caps per rail. It also has 0.1uf and 0.1uf+R? on each rail. I don't like how the power wires are routed to the board; they are bundled together with the speaker wires. They look like they can be moved to the other side of the heatsink out of the way.
The input coupling caps are 47uf 25v Elna Cerafine. There is also what looks like a R/L input filter consisting of 2 film caps and one aircore inductor per channel.
On the board by the input connection there is a NE5532 opamp. I'm sure this is the buffer/voltage gain for the input. This is probably the first thing I'm going to change. I have a pile of OPA2134.There are also two chips labeled "4558DD" that I'm guessing are NJM4558. I have no clue what they are for.
The TA0104A is in a socket, so if for some horrible reason it ever dies it can at least be easily changed(if you can find another). It looks like the amp board was made for a high power configuration. There are empty spots for extra output devices for each rail.
Oh, and if one wanted to bypass the 100kA pots on the front panel all it requires is a quick switch of two connectors.
My cameras battery is dead so I'll have to take pics later.
The pass-through and the B channel are basically just in parallel with the respective inputs/outputs. The B channel is only connected when the relay is active, so it really has no effect on the rest of the circuit when off. The pass-through can easily be disconnected.
I've been listening to two of them bi-amping my Silver Iris 15's and they sound pretty darn good to me. Crazy amount of power.
I'm not going to get carried away with mods, I'll hate myself if I do something stupid and break an amp. I think I'm just going to replace the NE5532 with OPA2134 and the cerafine input caps with some decent MKP's. Maybe bypass the front volume controls too. Between spending so much on these and killing my motorola DCP501 boards I'm scared to do anything though.
I've been listening to two of them bi-amping my Silver Iris 15's and they sound pretty darn good to me. Crazy amount of power.
I'm not going to get carried away with mods, I'll hate myself if I do something stupid and break an amp. I think I'm just going to replace the NE5532 with OPA2134 and the cerafine input caps with some decent MKP's. Maybe bypass the front volume controls too. Between spending so much on these and killing my motorola DCP501 boards I'm scared to do anything though.
i've listening to mine for about two weeks, pushing a pair of infinity qb's i rehabbed, including all new x-over parts. seems natural to me to be using 4 ohm speakers with this amp. i have own a sonic impact, a Trends TA, and now this, and it seems to me to do all the things i like about the tripath amps-- soundstage, solid, tight bass, lots of detail. currently running with a carver c-2 preamp, and no problems.
after reading through this thread, i decided to spring for the warranty that rhctrading had been trying to get me to go for. so now i feel all better, but for now, so far so good...
after reading through this thread, i decided to spring for the warranty that rhctrading had been trying to get me to go for. so now i feel all better, but for now, so far so good...
theAnonymous1 said:
Another fellow Silver Iris user. Seems a bit overkill for 96db speakers. I don't think these amps sound as good as my modded Trends 10.1 for efficient speakers, but for power hungry speakers, this Seven T amp is great. I like this amp much better than the Panasonic XR55 that I normally used. I thought my Advent speakers were hitting their compression/volume limits using the XR55, but once I plugged the Seven T in, I knew it was the amp holding it back. 200watts of tripath > 200watts of Panasonic class d.
Please Don't Flame Me..
AMT,
Did you try these out with the 901s?
They are 8 Ohm Speakers.. I am hearing lots of talk on here that the amp is not that good with 8Ohms and is better suited for 4..
Don't Flame Me People.. I have been toying with my 901s lately.. They are not as bad as people make them out to be.
Jeff
AMT,
Did you try these out with the 901s?
They are 8 Ohm Speakers.. I am hearing lots of talk on here that the amp is not that good with 8Ohms and is better suited for 4..
Don't Flame Me People.. I have been toying with my 901s lately.. They are not as bad as people make them out to be.
Jeff
Anonymous1 -> How do these sound compared to the DCP's? Any resemblance between the DCP's TA3020 and the Amp 7's TA0104? I am thinking of ditching the two modded DCP's for one or maybe two of these Amp 7's.
My choice is a single UCD400AD on my Magnepan MGIIIa, or a pair of Amp 7's biamping the Maggies. The UCD400AD amp I built (and just sold to make enough money to build another UCD400AD with much better chassis) sounded very very good. Best so far on these maggies. The new UCD amp will have a more powerful toroid (Antec 750VA vs no-name 500VA) and better caps...
The modded DCP (through the onboard DVD player and garbage preamp) sound totally dull and lifeless on the maggies...I haven't yet sent a clean signal to the stand alone TA3020 amp yet (bypassing the onboard pre and all the other crap), and don't know what to expect
One more thing, given the opportunity to put in single 56,000 uF 75V smoothing cap/rail or three 4800uF 75V caps/rail of comparable quality - what would you prefer on an amp like the Tripaths/UCD? Is there such thing as too much rail capacitance?
My choice is a single UCD400AD on my Magnepan MGIIIa, or a pair of Amp 7's biamping the Maggies. The UCD400AD amp I built (and just sold to make enough money to build another UCD400AD with much better chassis) sounded very very good. Best so far on these maggies. The new UCD amp will have a more powerful toroid (Antec 750VA vs no-name 500VA) and better caps...
The modded DCP (through the onboard DVD player and garbage preamp) sound totally dull and lifeless on the maggies...I haven't yet sent a clean signal to the stand alone TA3020 amp yet (bypassing the onboard pre and all the other crap), and don't know what to expect
One more thing, given the opportunity to put in single 56,000 uF 75V smoothing cap/rail or three 4800uF 75V caps/rail of comparable quality - what would you prefer on an amp like the Tripaths/UCD? Is there such thing as too much rail capacitance?
Hey John,
I can't really comment much on the difference between the DCP's and these amps as I am powering different speakers now. I will say that the DCP's had surprisingly low background noise compared to the AMP 7T. The AMP 7T is a bit noisier than I expected, but I don't notice it from my normal listening spot.
As far as choosing between finishing the DCP's or buying these; I would say buy the AMP 7T's and save yourself the headache. My opinion is kind of biased at this point though.
I think there is a point of diminishing returns when adding tons of rail capacitance. The 20,000uf per rail in these amps seems like plenty. I could see maybe using a bit more for a sub amp, as long as you don't black out the neighborhood when your amp starts up.
I can't really comment much on the difference between the DCP's and these amps as I am powering different speakers now. I will say that the DCP's had surprisingly low background noise compared to the AMP 7T. The AMP 7T is a bit noisier than I expected, but I don't notice it from my normal listening spot.
As far as choosing between finishing the DCP's or buying these; I would say buy the AMP 7T's and save yourself the headache. My opinion is kind of biased at this point though.
I think there is a point of diminishing returns when adding tons of rail capacitance. The 20,000uf per rail in these amps seems like plenty. I could see maybe using a bit more for a sub amp, as long as you don't black out the neighborhood when your amp starts up.
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