Hi-Fi Gear

[Stuart]

Ive mentioned this elsewhere but will mention it here incase it's of interest.

A friend has put me onto Tripath (chip) based music amplifiers saying they are cheap to run & sound better than many very expensive models. And he's right I had a listen and you hear stuff from your CD collection you've never heard before
Well impressed I was. So impressed I ordered one from eBay - a Muse DT- 50A model.

There are a variety of companies using the Tripath chips but they are hard to buy from specialist audio shops because the sellers cannot make much of a margin on them thus denying you & me the chance to own one The chips run virtually cold with no heatsinks attached and draw less current making them inexpensive to use.

You can see these amazing amps being demo'd on YouTube etc and, if you are in the market, I'd urge you to consider them. Sorry for sounding like an advert but these are interesting little amplifiers

Here's one company in the UK making & selling them. Bit pricey so maybe try eBay?
http://www.templeaudio.net/index.html

[Stuart]

The amp arrived today with a loose board & main coil. Plugged board in and improved the fixing of the coil. It sounds great and is burning in as I type.
Didn't pay no import duty either which was good - seller marked it down. Only £7 VAT.

[Dan J]

Thanks for introducing me to these Tripath amps Stuart as I never would've found them otherwise. There's a TA2021 powered amp now sat in my car so I can play music off my phone when I want and it was perfect for the job - relatively cheap, reasonable output levels and low power consumption. They'd probably even do someone as a hifi amp in a small room.

[Stuart]

Nice one Dan. I read somewhere that car stereo manufacturers are occasionally using these chips now.
I've one of the smaller units but I'm not using it anywhere currently. The DT50 still working fine & gives out plenty although I've quit running it into 4 ohm speakers as it has to work too hard. I have some 8 ohm Celesion's & it is fine through them. Clarity of sound even better since I upgraded thickness of the wire from circuit board to speaker out terminals. I figured it was 'bottle-necking' the power there. Nothing like thick copper all the way to the speakers to improve the performance.

[Dan J]

I had a smaller one too but a moments lack of concentration over New Year in trying to fit that one I put 12v through it the wrong way. Be warned - these things have no reverse polarity protection at all and crossing the voltage instantly fries the amp chip. The amps are too cheap to be worth repairing as well. A lesson learnt for me and one amp in the bin which was a shame but they're cheap as chips so the replacement is happily in the car and working fine. With an old set of 2 way Pioneer car speakers my experimental "cheap motoring" Volvo 740 now sounds better then our brand new Ford!

I wanted to upgrade my hifi a few years back and couldn't find any speakers I was happy with, at least that I could afford. I built myself a set of IPL Acoustics (www.iplacoustics.co.uk) transmission lines and run them off a 70w NAD amp. Sounds unbelievable and the amp helps keep the room warm at full chat

[Stuart]

Lol one way of heating a room!