SonicT for sale

I have a pair of Sonic Ts that are available.
Both are un-modded, boxed and in as new condition.
I've briefly used one, and had intended to mod, but circumstances are against me on that.

£35 each plus postage.
If you're in London, I can probably arrange delivery.

PM for more details or to organise.

 

Hi there,

What is it exactly that you are selling?

 

Have a look at this ...............

http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/t-amp_e.html

 

Its what I've been using for a couple of months now.....displacing a rather expensive bit of kit.

 

Mr Sukebe - does that include a psu? Can you deliver to Blackheath or Islington?

Liam.

 

Hi liam,

don't miss Mr S T-amps .........I've been running a pair of these for over a couple of months now, in biamp mode. I've not not wanted to put the Quad 707 back in, which I normally run. Oh if Mr S doesn't have a PSU...I've got one 11 -15volts dc adjustable 0.5 amp. I've just got a 3amp one off ebay.

 

Liam,

I can pop up to Islington if you like. If you can wait until Sunday, I'll happily drop a unit in. Failing that, I'm often in central London, so can meet up if you want. I live in Docklands area. PM me to confirm how you'd prefer to have it dropped in.


Ref the PSU, I don't have a spare, but can certainly vouch for a unit by Zanash, who definitely knows what he's doing.

 

How does one bi-amp with a pair of these amps then?

 

…yeah - I'd be interested to know as well

 

Chaps,

To hopefully answer some of the questions asked.
The SonicT is a stereo digital amp producing around 10w/channel.

The standard unit has a single input with a pair of cheapy outputs on the back and a volume control (not remote).

I've heard Zanash's reboxed SonicTs running as mono block power amps, which he believes sounds on par with his Quad power amp.

To mono-block them, Zanash has put one channel into a bridged input, and then run his treble drivers from one channel, with the bass run by the other. Zanash has put loads up in the DIY section about how to do this, and when visiting him, it appeared to be a fairly straightforward process.

Modding them doesn't look too difficult, but personally I'm simply not that confident in my abilities to do the job. From what I can see opportunities existing in replacing some of the caps, bypassing the cheapy volume control and using a decent power supply.
Clearly the above does work, as the units running with Zanash's MLs do the job rather well.

I have tried a single unit at home. Unfortunately they don't appear to be a good match with my Kabers, which are far less efficient than the MLs, and my Naim pre-power combo easily outperforms it, but then so it should, costing roughly 100 times the amount.

I'm not sure where to rate their ability. As standard, mid range is really good, bass not so great (with my Kabers). Probably at least a match for a budget integrated, and at the price a steal.
With some not too expensive modding, there's clearly much more potential.

If you have any other questions, please ask here or PM me.

 

One of the SonicTs is now sold.
One left.

 

i see. so basically they can be bi-amped but not monoblocked.

interesting stuff

 

Without trying to sound thick, is there a difference?

 

biamp is where u use one amp for tweeters and one for woofers

monoblock is one amp per speaker, hence mono

i have a sonic t. anyone elses get fairly warm?

 

I'd like one of these (If I'm quick and lucky enough) for a small system for our conservatory, you say they have 1 input, so if you have multiple device to hock up, tuner, cd, record deck, could you use a preamp? I'd be looking for a small pair of speakers to match this unit, any recommendations, the smaller the better, trying to keep as much sound quality as possible.

Also I have a 12v PSU brought originally to power a CB radio (remember them), would this be good enough to pwer this unit. its 13.8v I think.

 

2nd SonicT sold to Lee, thanks for that.

Lee,
If you want to use a pre-amp with the Sonics, the best idea would be to by pass the volume control completely. I'm told that it's a pretty cheap and nasty unit, and from the diagrams I've been shown, looks like the bypass can be achieved without a soldering iron on the unit, but with a 7 pin plug, thus making it easily reversable.

Rory,
Thanks for clarifying about the difference.
From what I remember, Zanash was using a single unit per speaker, with one channel of the unit powering the tweeter, and the other powering the bass. So I guess he was using it monoblocked.

 

No that's biamped. A mono-blocked amp is driven in bridged mode. The 2 channels (L and R) are driven out of phase, and the (single) speaker connections are made between the two 'active' contacts of each of the outputs. So as the signal increases, one terminal of the speaker (connected to one of the output channels) is driven positive and the other (connected to the other output channel) is simultaneously driven negative - the overall effect that there is twice the gain there would be with the speaker connected to only one channel, and the amp will run out of steam when it is delivering (nominally) twice the power available from 1 channel on its own

 

Cool, thanks for explaining that, never really understood the difference before.

 

erm....you right up to the point of getting it wrong
quote......from what hifi ...first one google found

If a speaker can be biwired, it can also be biamped, which involves using one amplifier channel for each drive unit to give further improvements. A stereo pair of two-way speakers will thus need four channels of amplification, and there's a variety of ways of doing this. The currently fashionable way is the use of an integrated amplifier along with a power amp.

I have commoned the inputs so both are in phase .....

Bridging is to speaker requires the positve and positiveof the amp [one channel out of phase ] to the positve terminal of the speakers [not biwire to save complication] the same for the negative amp and speeaker connections.

 

Sorry, which bit is wrong?

Yep. This is also what is commonly referred to as 'monoblock'ing a normal stereo power amplifier.

Really, a monoblock refers to a single box used as a single power amp - one amp (mono) per block. In the case of what is normally a two channel amplifier, it is turned into a monoblock by bridging.

cf. the Cyrus Smartpower. When you press the monoblock switch it turns it into a bridged amp.

The design of a sonicT means bridging of 2 channels isn't possible - beause each channel is already effectively a bridge. Therefore the only way to use a sonicT as monoblock is to stop using 1 of the channels - so it can't be monoblocked.

What you have done is vertical biamping. each amp still operates as a 2 channel amp, with one box used for each speaker. The alternative is horizontal biamping, where one amp is used for the (say) treble of both speakers, and another amp for the bass of both.