Hello- I am planning on building my first chip amp. Could someone advise which chip would work best with a pair of EL70en MiniOnkens. I listen mostly to classical and jazz music at fairly low to med volume.
Thanks
Thanks
Something based on an LM3886 would work well, I think. You could scratch build, or dig up various Chinese Ebay boards, or consider the GT-101 option:
Akitika GT-101
Akitika GT-101
On my blog (link on the number to the left) there's a 13W/8R design which gives me enough volume. Very simple, few parts and better sounding than the usual chipamps.
A decent chip that TDA but the gain is fixed at 46dB, rather high for practical use at lowish listening levels - the high gain makes it rather noisy. Note the worst case is 0.5mV output noise.
It's the easiest chip to work with, best chip amp I've heard. I'll post my layout of mine on my website if anyone is interested.
Hi Guys- thanks for your suggestions 🙂 I think I should stick with a manufactured board for this one. I don't have enough experience to build from scratch. 😱
How would the LM1875 sound with my miniOnkens? Is there a parallel 1875 board anywhere. I haven't been able to find one.
cheers
How would the LM1875 sound with my miniOnkens? Is there a parallel 1875 board anywhere. I haven't been able to find one.
cheers
in the family of the LM...I would stick to LM3875 from Peter Daniel. Check his site at Audiosector.com. 😉
PS: Long time ago, that was my first DIY amplifier!
There's a whole family of them which I reckon sound the best out of any I've heard - I've listened to and am very impressed by TDA8561 and TDA8566 which internally look the same. For this application though rather than your 46dB gain version, I'd recommend the TDA1553CQ which is the same as yours but only 26dB gain. Many of them are obsolete though or headed that way fast as NXP has a new range beginning with 'TDF'.
Thanks, I'll take a look 🙂
Checked it out - saw the PCBs but no schematics. What opamps are you using? I so far haven't found an opamp which sounds as good as these chipamps so I'm using other members of the family to do opamp duty 🙂
Last edited:
I use an opamp as a buffer so that the previous stage doesn't get overloaded, be it a cd player or preamp etc. and if you need to boost the gain you can.
Last edited:
The input impedance is plenty high enough (above 20kohms) - I'm feeding my TDA8566 (same family as yours) direct from my DAC and its not giving any problems, rather its sounding awesome. As you're someone who appreciates the great sound of these chipamps, why not try bypassing the opamp and see if you like it better? NE5532 is a decent opamp but its not quite in the same class as the sound I'm getting from my TDA 🙂
You know years ago before surround sound became popular I built my own system and I remember at the time that I had problems with the input source and being influenced by Jeff Macaulay I went this route. There are other little things I did along the way and incorporate them into my designs.
Given that you have the opamp already which can provide extra gain, you could also experiment with the lower gain TDAs. They have better rejection of PSU noise it seems, my TDA is pretty sensitive to HF decoupling and it only has 26dB gain.
Agree with both of you. I found that I need the buffer, but NE5532 (or even better ones) will only ruin the sound quality of the chip amp. So a discrete, even a single transistor will do to me.
Those speakers are not incredibly efficient, so you may want to give more consideration to the higher powered suggestions.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.