I bought this amp ( Sure Electronics' webstore 2 x 15Watt @ 8ohm Class-D Audio Amplifier Board -TPA3110 ) and the question is which caps to change to get better results.
Define "better"? Whats wrong with the amp as is?
Why do you think Sure is selling crappy hardware?
Why do you think Sure is selling crappy hardware?
Everything seems to be ok, but I heard that people changing caps on this board ( Sure Electronics' webstore 2 x 8Watt Class D Audio Amplifier Board - TPA3110 ) for better bass response and overall sound quality. So I want to know can I upgrade mine TPA board to perform better.
That's two different boards. Do you miss anything in the bass region or sound quality in general?
I mean, improving something just by changing some caps.. ? To my knowledge, most "improvements" are based on biased expectations.
If it sounds right, why change? If you want to change, i'd recommend to get a second board which will be left unmodified- just to make sure, you have a valid "reference" to compare with.
I mean, improving something just by changing some caps.. ? To my knowledge, most "improvements" are based on biased expectations.
If it sounds right, why change? If you want to change, i'd recommend to get a second board which will be left unmodified- just to make sure, you have a valid "reference" to compare with.
I could be wrong but they seem to use 220µF capacitors in the output which translates to a high pass of ~90Hz at 8 Ohms or 180Hz at 4 Ohms. If that's really the case (and these aren't buffer caps), you'd have to replace them with much higher capacitance, 1000 to 2000µF would be appropriate for 40Hz at 8 respective 4 Ohms.
I miss some deeper bass. Like ICG sayd those 220uF caps maybe translates to a high pass . And I want to know which exactly caps to change. Also I want to know which caps are for cause there is 8 caps and I can't find out which caps are for.
I am not familiar with this board, but TPA3110 does not use output capacitors. There shouldn't be anything other than a simple low pass output filter (a 33uH inductor in series and a small capacitor to the ground) between each output of the chip and each speaker input terminal. The picture you linked to shows 33uH inductors, so it seems to be configured to drive 8-ohm speakers.
The 220uF capacitors are power supply filters. If I see the picture correctly, there's four on each side. I bet they are all parallel between VCC and GND. Total power filter capacitance is the sum of all those caps, or 1760uF, which should be more than enough for the current levels of this board. I doubt you would see any improvement by changing those caps.
What kind of power supply are you using? If you are driving 8-ohm speakers, you may want to have a power supply that can deliver 15V at 2A or more.
The only other thing I can think of are the input decoupling capacitors. If they are the wrong value or defective, they could be filtering out some of the bass. I don't know where they are on this board but they should be somewhere close to the inputs. You could easily find them by tracing from the input with a multimeter. This is extremely unlikely IMHO.
The 220uF capacitors are power supply filters. If I see the picture correctly, there's four on each side. I bet they are all parallel between VCC and GND. Total power filter capacitance is the sum of all those caps, or 1760uF, which should be more than enough for the current levels of this board. I doubt you would see any improvement by changing those caps.
What kind of power supply are you using? If you are driving 8-ohm speakers, you may want to have a power supply that can deliver 15V at 2A or more.
The only other thing I can think of are the input decoupling capacitors. If they are the wrong value or defective, they could be filtering out some of the bass. I don't know where they are on this board but they should be somewhere close to the inputs. You could easily find them by tracing from the input with a multimeter. This is extremely unlikely IMHO.
Uhm, this is a BTL output, there's no 220uF in the output. What you are saying is only valid for SE amps.
These eight caps are all supply decoupling, 4 per side. That's way more than needed for a 2x15W amplifier.
If you miss bass, the actual only influence is coming from the input coupling caps. But from my experience, these boards come with 4-10uF here, so your lower corner frequency is already in the sub-hz range.
If there's not enough "ompf", the amp is too weak and/or your speakers aren't that sensitive.
(You tried changing speakers polarity on one side already?)
These eight caps are all supply decoupling, 4 per side. That's way more than needed for a 2x15W amplifier.
If you miss bass, the actual only influence is coming from the input coupling caps. But from my experience, these boards come with 4-10uF here, so your lower corner frequency is already in the sub-hz range.
If there's not enough "ompf", the amp is too weak and/or your speakers aren't that sensitive.
(You tried changing speakers polarity on one side already?)
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So those all caps for voltage input ? Or what ? Or 3 for voltage and 1 for signal input ?
TY for great reply 🙂 . I think that 3 caps are for voltage and 1 for input. I will try to check them with multimeter and write back tomorrow morning.
I forget to said that I'm using 8 ohm SONY SS-L100V speakers. And I don't tried to change polarity, I connected them like it should be.
The input capacitors in signalpath are the slightly larger yellow blocks near the rca inputs, you'll see them. Sure doesn't use high or highest gainsettings and on other boards doesn't use oversized inputcapacitors, 2x8Sure3110 has inputcapacitors measuring between 150nF and 170nF in combination with 26dB gainsetting, too small for real bass.
Sure3116 with 26dB gain has identical sized inputceramics as your 3110 and was introduced around same time, that Sure has 1uF I recall, but maybe 2.2uF, I replaced them with 2uF Panasonic filmsmd's, that I do remember🙂 That doesn't bring very much additional bass, but slightly different coloured bass. Changing the outputinductors can change bass too, but more likely to get tighter imo. Changing the 8 electrolytics for Oscons will colour bass too, here it will seem to get fatter, warmer.
Your 3110 ampboard has warmer bass than 3116 boards already, so maybe you used to listen to bass boost, loudness ? Out of phase is real possible, Sure 3116 had outputs labelled out of phase in silkscreen, your Sony speakers wouldn't be first to be miswired internally either. It is easy enough to check.
Sure3116 has outputfilter components between each speakers outputs, probably because they also make versions of same basic ampboard design for other class D chips, removing those ADfilter components does improve Sure3116, but not the bass 🙂
Sure3116 with 26dB gain has identical sized inputceramics as your 3110 and was introduced around same time, that Sure has 1uF I recall, but maybe 2.2uF, I replaced them with 2uF Panasonic filmsmd's, that I do remember🙂 That doesn't bring very much additional bass, but slightly different coloured bass. Changing the outputinductors can change bass too, but more likely to get tighter imo. Changing the 8 electrolytics for Oscons will colour bass too, here it will seem to get fatter, warmer.
Your 3110 ampboard has warmer bass than 3116 boards already, so maybe you used to listen to bass boost, loudness ? Out of phase is real possible, Sure 3116 had outputs labelled out of phase in silkscreen, your Sony speakers wouldn't be first to be miswired internally either. It is easy enough to check.
Sure3116 has outputfilter components between each speakers outputs, probably because they also make versions of same basic ampboard design for other class D chips, removing those ADfilter components does improve Sure3116, but not the bass 🙂
TY for explanation. And last thing I want to say is: that amp is buzzing until I connect it to any audio source. It is possible to do something with that ?
amp is buzzing until I connect it to any audio source. It is possible to do something with that ?
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