TPA3116D2 Amp

there also seems to be a difference between AC resistance and DC resistance of inductors, thick wires usually have lower DC resistance, thinner wires lower AC resistance??? anybody know if that matters??

Thinner wires have less of an increase in resistance at HF due to skin/proximity effect - that's what forces the current to flow only on the surface of a conductor (for skin effect) or close to an adjacent one (proximity effect). Thick wires suffer from this to a greater extent. It'll matter for how hot the inductors get - if the AC resistance is high at the switching frequency they'll get hot.
 
Of course inductors and capacitors store energy, your point is?

When the inductor winding is parallel to the PCB, the magnetic field induced will be perpendicular to the PCB, therefore passing through the traces. Not sure how bad this will affect the current flowing through the traces.

Regards,

why do similar specced inductors sound so different? by accident I measured capacitance, do not know if measure capacitance of inductors can mean anything, but meter read 15uF charged (wurth) for one, I found that strangely high value so I did the same with other, close to 100uF charged for the other brand (ice). if there really is capacitance like that, that would be filtercomponent not in inductor specsheet??

regarding shielded inductors: maybe shielded inductors are not shielded in all directions the same way? or shielding is irrelevant to negative effect when paralel coilwindings to pcb, TI technicians/designers specificly mentioned it as undesirable feat of most shielded (SMD) inductors, that is all I know.

to me it appears the differences in sound between inductors are not found in inductordatasheet provided by manufactor, or datasheet specs only look similar but are measured in different ways? all of you are far more technical then I am.
 
quick question:

Is it normal to see an increase in operating temps if you replace stock inductors with the Bourns coils used by Rhing and others?

I have three modded boards I play with.

The YJ blue board with the changed coils has always run hotter than the others.

wondering if this is due to the mod, or perhaps indicative of some other issue.

What sort of issues can cause the chip to run hot and how do you troubleshoot them?

I only notice the heat with the board with the new coils--it is set to highest gain, but I noticed it at lower gain settings as well.

24v power supply from dta-100a amplifier.

I can still touch the heat sink and such, but it is noticeably hotter than the other two boards with same parts (except for coils) and gain setting.
 
I have both and am unable to tell the difference.

Both boards appear identical to me.

I have ordered from both and found that hiampifier offers better response and service than YJ.

also, Hiamplifier includes a hook up cable AND a set of gain adjustment resistors.
 
quick question:

Is it normal to see an increase in operating temps if you replace stock inductors with the Bourns coils used by Rhing and others?

I have three modded boards I play with.

The YJ blue board with the changed coils has always run hotter than the others.

wondering if this is due to the mod, or perhaps indicative of some other issue.

What sort of issues can cause the chip to run hot and how do you troubleshoot them?

I only notice the heat with the board with the new coils--it is set to highest gain, but I noticed it at lower gain settings as well.

24v power supply from dta-100a amplifier.

I can still touch the heat sink and such, but it is noticeably hotter than the other two boards with same parts (except for coils) and gain setting.

I think it's the 24V PS causing the heat. I tried the same one you have, and the chip got hot. It's cold with 12V PS. My blue boards are currently not modded.
The 24V PS increased volume level, and to my ears sound quality over my 12V PS, but when I put the 6N3 3 tube preamp in front of the blue board, there is no difference between the 24V PS and 12V other than the heat from the 24V.
I am back to using the 12V PS.
 
I think it's the 24V PS causing the heat. I tried the same one you have, and the chip got hot. It's cold with 12V PS. My blue boards are currently not modded.
The 24V PS increased volume level, and to my ears sound quality over my 12V PS, but when I put the 6N3 3 tube preamp in front of the blue board, there is no difference between the 24V PS and 12V other than the heat from the 24V.
I am back to using the 12V PS.

I read about that preamp. It has 23dB gain I recall, maybe you can tell if gain is in fact lower? If in fact 23dB it has more gain then my 3116 lol and my volumecontrol pot with the sources I use is already permanently left of 12 oclock, I think there will be very little left in volume control?
 
I think it's a great deal. Best $25 I ever spent on audio. Every tweak makes it better.

Just cut the power a little--from 24v down to 16v from an IBM laptop brick. Now the thing barely gets warm.

so much detail, listening to some live NOLA brass bands and it sounds like you are in the bar listening to them.
 
So I finally made my purchase of the Taobao TPA3116 2.0 that was posted a while back. I'm going to see if I like this and if I can do without a subwoofer for a while before thinking of purchasing the 2.1 model.

Anyway it just arrived to me in Canada (I used alsotao.com as my taobao agent -- good experience) and I opened the box and didn't realize how SMALL it was!!! Mind you I am coming from an original NuForce Icon 1 DAC/AMP combo so I thought it was bigger than I saw from the photos, but no way!! this thing is so small and jam packed, its not really that much larger than an AA battery geez!! 😱😱 Take a look at that HP laptop logo for reference on its size.

I haven't hooked anything up yet and I'm going to find the lead wire connector for the line out (I think these are those little fan connectors I remember in PC power supplies for fan) to see whether it will be easier to use that or I'll just end up using the 3.5mm.

Anyway here are some photos I took. All in to my door for about $18CDN total. Soldering and workmanship look great for the price!

WnJ1sfV.jpg

Ehs2nqG.jpg

TimNh9O.jpg

jX3o7zw.jpg

ilwOrX1.jpg

9NJQD7W.jpg

ym9DQPD.jpg
 
So I finally made my purchase of the Taobao TPA3116 2.0 that was posted a while back. I'm going to see if I like this and if I can do without a subwoofer for a while before thinking of purchasing the 2.1 model.

Anyway it just arrived to me in Canada (I used alsotao.com as my taobao agent -- good experience) and I opened the box and didn't realize how SMALL it was!!! Mind you I am coming from an original NuForce Icon 1 DAC/AMP combo so I thought it was bigger than I saw from the photos, but no way!! this thing is so small and jam packed, its not really that much larger than an AA battery geez!! 😱😱 Take a look at that HP laptop logo for reference on its size.

I haven't hooked anything up yet and I'm going to find the lead wire connector for the line out (I think these are those little fan connectors I remember in PC power supplies for fan) to see whether it will be easier to use that or I'll just end up using the 3.5mm.

Anyway here are some photos I took. All in to my door for about $18CDN total. Soldering and workmanship look great for the price!

WnJ1sfV.jpg

Ehs2nqG.jpg

TimNh9O.jpg

jX3o7zw.jpg

ilwOrX1.jpg

9NJQD7W.jpg

ym9DQPD.jpg

Wow, it is a good deal. The soldering looks clean and tidy. This is the one with many features. Please let us know how it sounds.

Regards,
 
I just got two blue boards (43rmb from Taobao) delivered.

First thing I did was remove the stock (22uH) inductors and measure them. DCR is respectable, around 40mohms but at 100kHz (the high frequency limit of my LCR meter) this has gone up to 0.48ohms. Unacceptably high in my book especially as it'll be higher still at the switching freq. So I'll experiment with alternative output inductors.

Second point is there's a single ground fill used for the 0V connections, this I'll hack into to get some semblance of star earthing for the audio feed. Its rather fiddly as isolating the input ground means desoldering the input connector to break the thermal reliefs on the top side. Ground fills like this are a problem for audio quality because the ground currents get all mixed up and with a switcher there are some fairly heavy currents flowing - we don't want any impedances shared between power and signal grounds.