t-amp speakers

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smintel

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HI there,

I've just bought a t-amp on ebay on a whim.. its this:


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....21496&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT#ht_4893wt_1141

I thought it might make a good cheap amp to use in my bedroom. But now I realise that the cheap panasonic speakers I've got up there are probably not sensitive enough to work well with this amp. (it recommends >86db). So I'm pondering about buying some new speakers.. not really wanting to spend a fortune though.. so would be interested in recommendations of speakers under £100

I've got some Tannoy Cheviot speakers in my living room, driven by a small Onix amp. It occurred to me that the Tannoys probably are the right sensitivity for the T-Amp, and maybe I could use it to drive those.. and use the Onix upstairs. I'll definitely try it with the Tannoys and see how it compares with the Onix.

Many thanks for thoughts!
 
smintel said:
HI there,

I've just bought a t-amp on ebay on a whim.. its this:


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI....21496&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT#ht_4893wt_1141

I thought it might make a good cheap amp to use in my bedroom. But now I realise that the cheap panasonic speakers I've got up there are probably not sensitive enough to work well with this amp. (it recommends >86db). So I'm pondering about buying some new speakers.. not really wanting to spend a fortune though.. so would be interested in recommendations of speakers under £100

I've got some Tannoy Cheviot speakers in my living room, driven by a small Onix amp. It occurred to me that the Tannoys probably are the right sensitivity for the T-Amp, and maybe I could use it to drive those.. and use the Onix upstairs. I'll definitely try it with the Tannoys and see how it compares with the Onix.

Many thanks for thoughts!
Click to expand...

I was listening to one today at the London Bake Off show driving big efficient horns and it sounded sterile, dynamically flat and uninteresting. For someone who just want information type detail it is fine and it would do a good job driving portable hi-fi. I can see it a perfect match to use with DAB radio as they both seem to have similar limiting characteristics, but serious hi-fi it is not, you are much better off with the Onix.
 
I would also keep the Onix.
I heard the same amp today as Richard mentions and while it certainly went loud enough into the sensitive horns we were using, you get this compression effect on dynamics which sound a bit like bad analogue noise reduction systems like DBX, or if anyone remember Dolby C - that squashing of dynamics and rounding of transients.

Can't grumble for the money but a decent linear amplifier with a stiff PSU is a lot better.
 
I got a mate who uses one in the kitchen and he has a set of small cherrywood jam monitors on it and it sounds amazing, he's tried loads of speakers on it, like vocals, ma, kef, epos, minstrel but these jamos just came to life on the t, a stroke of luck match and a wonderful sound.
 
I had one once, had to find out about the emperors new clothes.
Unfortunately, the new clothes were bought from an oxfam shop it seems. A £30 second hand amp from Ebay wiped the floor with it.
Can't see what the fuss is with T amps - the size and power requirements aside.
 
danworth81 said:
I got a mate who uses one in the kitchen and he has a set of small cherrywood jam monitors on it and it sounds amazing, he's tried loads of speakers on it, like vocals, ma, kef, epos, minstrel but these jamos just came to life on the t, a stroke of luck match and a wonderful sound.
Click to expand...

Thats interesting.. any idea which jamo speakers he's using?
 
l too brought the same amp, as l have posted on WigWam, and with my Harbeth Compact 7ES2, it sounds amazing, and l mean amazing, l am hooked on T-Amps now and will probably be buying a much higher powered T-amp which will offer more inputs like Virtue Audio/ HLLY sort of amps, if you only have one source and have high sensitivity speakers, you really need to here this amp, all in my humble opinion of course.:)
 
Tarzan said:
l too brought the same amp, as l have posted on WigWam, and with my Harbeth Compact 7ES2, it sounds amazing, and l mean amazing, l am hooked on T-Amps now and will probably be buying a much higher powered T-amp which will offer more inputs like Virtue Audio/ HLLY sort of amps, if you only have one source and have high sensitivity speakers, you really need to here this amp, all in my humble opinion of course.:)
Click to expand...
:confused: well we have totally different ears and understanding / appreciation of music, I just could not live with that flat undynamic presentation.
 
As a £60 bit of new kit I thought the T amp at todays bake-off? was OK. However, straight afterwards we swapped it for a £150 new Aleysis (or whatever it's called?) solid state amp that was a very nice upgrade for £100 - sounding more natural, clearer - easier to listen to.

Also at the show today was an A&R A60 - sounding fine, plus Quad 405's and 306's sounding fine. These are the sort of cheap small portable amps that I'd be buying for £50 give of take a bit. There's every chance that your Onix will sound much better than the T-amp - as Richard and Rob's already said.


As a general thing - I've heard 3 digital amps at bake-offs this year - one of them being a rather expensive item. For music with natural instruments - especially pianos - they have an un-natural sound, making them sound like electric versions of the real instruments. With electronic pop music this is less of a problem.
 
Hearing the whole story

T-amps have a distinctive style of presentation, but it's short-sighted to generalise in this way: just like any amplifier, they're only as good as their power supply.

If you use a £50 Tripath amp with its £2.50 switch-mode PSU, you can expect all the trouble outlined above, regardless of speaker sensitivity. But they respond marvellously to well designed power supplies.

Ultimately, they are limited by obvious physical factors with regard to LF heft, but with moderately sensitive speakers, linear power, and particularly when listening near-field, many have found that it's possible to build a very satisfying system around them.

It's also terribly important to have an informed discussion about the different kinds of T-amp: the 2024 chip-amp auditioned at the show sounds very different to the much more dynamic 2050 or the smooth 2020. And none of those chips sound anything like the modules used in most of the best subwoofers and active speakers - or the Bel Canto or Wyred 4 Sound amplifiers - or the Hypex-based units - or the Channel Island Audio and Virtue Audio amps - or the Spectrons, or the later Trichord amps: it's a broad church.
 
True, but the points made were directed at the particular unit in the link, at least those from Richard and myself having heard it yesterday. if someone wants to run it from a far more substantial PSU we have a different amplifier.
 
As long as we don't lose the baby with the bath-water here . . . some of the coments thus far have specifically blamed 'Tripath' for an unpleasant listening experience when you were actually - foremost - listening to a lousy power supply. I'm sure Richard won't be arguing against the importance of that?
 
How good is the power supply in a Bel Canto Evo 2i?

I thought that this was a decent amp when I heard it at a small bake-off earlier this year apart from it making natural instruments sound noticeably un-natural.
 
Hmmm.. the t-amp has just arrived.. and I've tried it out against the Onix on my Tannoy speakers.. I think your probably right, the same track was noticeably nicer with the Onix - though not sure I could really express why.. to give it a fair chance I played a chemical brothers track thinking the t-amp would be at its best with electronica...

However I'm now listening to it again in my bedroom on some panasonic speakers - probably not very sensitive speakers - I've no idea what they're rated as... but it actually sounds pretty good... better than I was expecting.. though it does seem to lose power and go a little muffled occasionally, which is remedied by turning it off and on again - not ideal. Is this a cheap power supply artifact? If so, what kind of power supply would make a good upgrade?

I've found some cheap 90db Jamo speakers on ebay which I'm hoping will improve things further when they arrive.
 
My advice would be to stop trying to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.

In the configuration supplied it simply isn't a very good amplifier - sounds passably ok into easy loads but nothing more.
 

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