Sonic Impact T-Amp

Ok - who's heard one?

TNT review of Sonic Impact T-Amp

Complete esoteric hifi for under £100?

 

Wow!! me want one!!

wheres the credit card..

 

For $30 it has to be worth a punt....allthough it won't be trying it since it's 9W (into 4 ohms) won't do much for my Dyns, especially not in a room the size of mine. I wonder what the manufacturer considers to be the target audience for such a product?

Michael.

 

Probably ipod users wanting a small stylish system, stick some small speakers and a 3.5mm to 3.5mm lead and there you have a 40Gb mini-hifi

 

I'd love one. With 9W I can achieve massive volume and headroom with efficient speakers.

The only reason I havent bought one is because I already have an amp. Im thinking of buying it as a spare though, in case the main one needs servicing/repair.

I particularly like the idea that its battery powered. What a great way to remove mains mess.

Chris

 

Damn ! I was going to buy one, but the company that ships to the UK is out of stock.

Amazingly, with exchange rates I think it costs 20 quid plus p&p !!!

If it sounds as good as the review says, I think thats hilarious!

 

and which company ships to europe?

thanks

gert
________
hotbox vaporizer

 

details are in the review.
chris

 

I got mine delivered (after 7weeks) the other day for £30inc p&p with some soundpax speakers (off ebay). Still haven't listened to it as I'm in need of a decent ac/dc adaptor for it and I haven't bothered getting batteries yet. I haven't got any proper hifi speakers to test it with, but I do have a pair of the famous white van speakers, so I'll see what it sounds like running them. If it's ok sounding I plan to build some speakers with fostex drivers to use on my pc.

 

It seems no where in the UK sells them
I'd love to get one of these and stick it in a nice little case

 

Hmmm, I'm still sans system, so I may think about getting one of these bad boys. I've pledged to not go silly with hifi for a while, so this seems perfect! Now to find a pair of old high sensitvity speakers for peanuts...

 

if people are interested, i could purchase these and forward them on. cash cleared in advance though please, no offence but i'm not prepared to finance purchase. if i get any interest i will look into shipping costs and give a total price asap. purchase price for me is $19.45 (c. £10 !!!!!) + shipping to my location + handling.

 

Stumblin that sounds great!

I just need to ask around the people I know to find someone with a UK bank account and a paypal account (you have paypal?)

I dont have paypal, and the currency charges the bank charges for currency conversion would turn the prospective purchase from 30 dollars into about 70!!

Thanks for the offer.

Chris

 

Think Geek are selling them at $29 + $21 postage and expecttting deliveries on 10 Feb. I'm tempted, maybe I could sell all my Naim amps as well

 

I also don't use paypal :cry:

 

What sort of potential might these have for DIY?

There's links in the review to cases which will allow you to use decent RCA and speaker terminals. And a full "audiophile" version weighing in at $499

The power supply and terminals would seem the place to start.

How easy would things like using two as mono amps? Four, and biamp them?

Any of the resident tweakers considering anything?

A reMOte would be nice too

 

Well I tried the amp out last night and it's much better than I thought it would be. First I connected it to the SoundPax speakers that came with it, more to test the speakers than the amp. They're suprisingly good- not hi-fi but fun nonetheless, and they could go quite loud with not much distortion. But as these speakers put out very little in the way of bass and are very much treble oriented I couldnt get a feel for the amp's capabilities.

So I hooked it up to my white van speakers. They're floor standers, very cheaply made with a 12inch woofer, 4inch mid and a tweeter, 91db sensitivity, 8ohms. They sound ok, nothing great though. I used to have them paired with an old Pioneer amp (I think it was an a200 or some similar number) and they sounded really harsh and tinny with a terratec 24/96 card as the source. I then changed the amp for a marantz pm-50 which was miles better. It gave a clean overall sound and a good serving of bass (nice bass, not muddy overblown stuff).
Well anyway, the t-amp sounded as good as the marantz, possibly more detailed (I can't AB as I've sold the amp) but the bass is defintely on par with it. Also it can drive the speakers to decent listening levels without distortion (decent as in I needed to raise my voice a fair bit to speak to my brother).

Out of curiosity I wanted to compare the t-amp with my brothers pioneer mini system. It's an old one from 1996 which set him back £500. Basically the t-amp was used to drive the system's speakers with a portable cd player as the source. It sounded noticably clearer and more open than the pioneer's amp. The bass wasn't exagerated and the treble wasn't either. It sounded alot more natural and nice. The t-amp was unable to deliver as high a volume output however (it distorted quicker than the pioneer's amp), but it was easily good enough. I'd say it sounded better overall than the pioneer's amp.

I'm now definitely going to look into making some speakers for the amp once I find an ideal driver and enclosure design. It's superb.

 

Gotta get me one of these! Chris, have you ordered yet?

Teamed with a filterless dac, fed from the PC, this has to be the cheapest high end system known to man! £130 all in! Leaves a lot of money for some big Tannoy's to boot.

 

I was thinking of some efficient mini monitors - perhaps with fostex units and no crossovers to use as a computer/study system with the PC as a source and this as the amp.

The amp could be used as a main system spare.

It is apparently tiny too - about the size of the palm of your hand.

Im waiting till the 10th of Feb when the stockist gets them in, and then I'll order one.

Hope it doesnt out-perform my main system!! :S

Chris

The 'soundpad' speakers they do to go with them look like complete and utter crap though, it has to be said.

These are also on that 'geek' site.

 

The Soundpads are basically what drive the SoundPax speakers that Sonic Impact also do. Like axebeatz says the SoundPax sound quite good if not HiFi and they're just made of cardboard though like most NXT stuff I've had they'll probably come unglued at some point.

The class T amp looks to be basically the TA 2024 referance board from Tripath there's info on the tripath site. There's also a news story there that Sharp Euro TV's are getting the same chips to power their LCD screen speakers.