Since buying the parts from Hypex to build myself a nice home-cinema amp to replace my existing Sony amp, I had completely forgotten that I was also using my Sony amp to drive a couple of speakers in my kitchen for background music.
So I'd like to add another stereo power amp for those speakers. The source would be a new pre-amp I have that can feed the power amp via balanced or unbalanced audio.
Had I thought of it at the time I bought the Hypex amps, I could have added their low-power OEM amp, but now I'd have to buy it separately, it's relatively expensive for what I want to achieve.
I'm handy with a soldering iron so happy to assemble something in kit form, but I don't know where to start. It doesn't even need to be class D, but I thought that here would be a good place as the power requirements are small, so hoping to be able to drive a lower power amp off a DC brick or laptop power supply.
Alternatively, I'm happy with a commercial product, but it needs to be a power amp, not a normal amp with its own gain. Small case is also really important as I don't want a full-width unit just for the kitchen speakers.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance 🙂
So I'd like to add another stereo power amp for those speakers. The source would be a new pre-amp I have that can feed the power amp via balanced or unbalanced audio.
Had I thought of it at the time I bought the Hypex amps, I could have added their low-power OEM amp, but now I'd have to buy it separately, it's relatively expensive for what I want to achieve.
I'm handy with a soldering iron so happy to assemble something in kit form, but I don't know where to start. It doesn't even need to be class D, but I thought that here would be a good place as the power requirements are small, so hoping to be able to drive a lower power amp off a DC brick or laptop power supply.
Alternatively, I'm happy with a commercial product, but it needs to be a power amp, not a normal amp with its own gain. Small case is also really important as I don't want a full-width unit just for the kitchen speakers.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance 🙂
would the MaxAmp Home - Maxamp 12V Versterker meet your needs? The on board volume control is bypassed by default.
I have a few hours on mine in a Boominator and it is meeting my needs quite well.
I have a few hours on mine in a Boominator and it is meeting my needs quite well.
Or a TPA3116 which can be fed with a regular 19v laptop PSU. If you don't have a PSU brick lying around i'd go with the MaxAmp combined with an open frame 12v 3.2-5A psu.
Hmm that MaxAmp could be just the ticket. At that price, it's worth paying for the convenience of not having to create PCBs, etc. I'd need to find a suitable 12V PSU, but that's simple enough.
The TPA3116 looks interesting and I guess offers a bit more power. I did see the thread on here, 300 pages is enough to keep my busy. Is there a readily-available PCB with the chip pre-soldered? I saw some PCB prints early on, but not too sure. I don't have the ability to tidily solder surface mount components...
The TPA3116 looks interesting and I guess offers a bit more power. I did see the thread on here, 300 pages is enough to keep my busy. Is there a readily-available PCB with the chip pre-soldered? I saw some PCB prints early on, but not too sure. I don't have the ability to tidily solder surface mount components...
Ahh, reading up more in that thread, I've bought the chinese board off their ebay shop TPA3116 amplifier assembled board 50W+50W | eBay
Cheap enough and will be more than adequate for my needs.
Thanks for the pointers 🙂
Cheap enough and will be more than adequate for my needs.
Thanks for the pointers 🙂
@tfboy - just wandering how you got on with the TPA3116 board from china (above)?
Did you just connect a laptop power supply and it was ready to go?
I ask because I want to stick this in the ceiling along with a raspberry pi and DAC and feed the DAC into this amp directly....
thoughts?
Stu
Did you just connect a laptop power supply and it was ready to go?
I ask because I want to stick this in the ceiling along with a raspberry pi and DAC and feed the DAC into this amp directly....
thoughts?
Stu
Hi Stu,
It's working fine. The chip does get rather warm in its case over time when in use, but so far has been faultless.
Decent power / volume from them too driving my Monitor Audio R452/MD speakers.
For a class D amp, it's a bit on the slow side, transients, timbre and clarity aren't as good as proper class D HiFi designs (comparing to Hypex UcD), but at that price, they do represent good value for money.
Power supply costed about as much and I had an old plastic aluminium-coated box lying around I used.
I used this PSU from ebay. Works OK.
These panel cutouts fitted the standard connector on the PSU so didn't need to resort to the provided adapters.
The audio input uses that strange JST connector. I found out it's used a lot for remote control batteries so again, Ebay was a source for a cheap one 🙂
I use it to drive some cheap Eltax speakers in the kitchen (the MA's I listed above are in my lounge), the source being the Zone 2 output from my Marantz AV8801 AVR.
A couple of photos of the end result:
I didn't worry about making the holes line up super tidily as this is just stuck in the back of my rack of gear...
It's working fine. The chip does get rather warm in its case over time when in use, but so far has been faultless.
Decent power / volume from them too driving my Monitor Audio R452/MD speakers.
For a class D amp, it's a bit on the slow side, transients, timbre and clarity aren't as good as proper class D HiFi designs (comparing to Hypex UcD), but at that price, they do represent good value for money.
Power supply costed about as much and I had an old plastic aluminium-coated box lying around I used.
I used this PSU from ebay. Works OK.
These panel cutouts fitted the standard connector on the PSU so didn't need to resort to the provided adapters.
The audio input uses that strange JST connector. I found out it's used a lot for remote control batteries so again, Ebay was a source for a cheap one 🙂
I use it to drive some cheap Eltax speakers in the kitchen (the MA's I listed above are in my lounge), the source being the Zone 2 output from my Marantz AV8801 AVR.
A couple of photos of the end result:
I didn't worry about making the holes line up super tidily as this is just stuck in the back of my rack of gear...
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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Thanks for the info! Looks perfect for my needs. Is there currently anything better that you know of? Keeping the price of the simple prebuilt circuit board below £40 or £50?
I will look further into the forums but there are just so many class D amps available. My only real requirements are the lappy PSU and for it to be reasonably small,
stu
I will look further into the forums but there are just so many class D amps available. My only real requirements are the lappy PSU and for it to be reasonably small,
stu
You can improve TDA3116 boards a lot yourself by adding capacitance to the supply - this has the subjective effect of improving transient response.
Do this one upgrade and you will love what it does: switch main power caps to Panasonic OSCON's SEPF 330uF 25V. There are other mods but this one changes the amp completely in a good way.
I don't think you can improve the price/performance much other than changing / improving the PSU caps as the others have posted.
I haven't bothered doing it.
In terms of size, it's pretty small. Depending on the power you need, you'll probably find that a suitable power supply will be bigger than the amp board.
I haven't bothered doing it.
In terms of size, it's pretty small. Depending on the power you need, you'll probably find that a suitable power supply will be bigger than the amp board.
FYI I have been running my MaxAmp off an old Thinkpad supply that operates at 16V and has worked fine for 4 months. I never turn it off. I have a TPA3116 (or maybe it is a TPA3118 now that I think about it) on the way for comparison purposes. I use the amp in my workshop so it is far from a critical listening environment.
Nope. 16V. Your mileage may vary but the designer made reference to an absolute max being above 14V which gave me confidence to try it.
Great, thanks for all the info, have just bought this
Are the supply caps the big brown ones on the board?
And what voltage brick should I get? I'm looking at a 15V 4A one right now, but could source a 19V if it would be better suited to the job....
Also want to experiment with tapping off a 5V for a raspberry Pi from the same brick,
cheers Stu
Are the supply caps the big brown ones on the board?
And what voltage brick should I get? I'm looking at a 15V 4A one right now, but could source a 19V if it would be better suited to the job....
Also want to experiment with tapping off a 5V for a raspberry Pi from the same brick,
cheers Stu
I find 3116 sounds better at 19v compared to 12v. Probably better dynamics due to more voltage reserves. You may need isolated DC to DC converter to tap 5v off main supply for a raspberry PI.
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