Topic: Sonic Impact T amp..., impressed yet again..

[Tim]

borrowed ToddR's some time back and was floored at what that little thing could do with my 88db efficient B&W's in my medium sized room.

for a small room or office it would be great

what are people using for speakers with it? Craig I'd be interested in knowing what you use in your office. I'm imagining my boss yelling at me through the wall

[Nick's Picks]

If you can run anything in the 90db + sensitivity range...you're stylin.
depends on how much volume you like.

remember the rule of watts vs. sensitivity.  Every added decibel requires a doubling of power.
So if your speakers are rated as 90db sensitivity....It works like this :

90db at 1m with 1w of power.
91db  with 2w
92db with 4w
93db with 8w
94db with 16w
95db with 32w, and that would be the end of what the T amp has.

so if you like to listen at concert volume with impact and pressurisation, you'll need some efficient speakers.  Ideally, a set of 94db rated speakers would kick ass.
but that said, you were able to drive 88db B&Ws.  I was able to drive 89db Tylo reff system...though not to any great dynamics..., but enough.

[Jimna]

interesting, what level is considered low sensitivity?  ive seen quality speakers that rate an 85db, is that poor?

[Nick's Picks]

yes.
doesn't mean they sound bad.  Just means they need a shit ton of power if you want to listen at 100+db volume wise.  (think live concert...at its absolute loudest from the SBD area..say 50' from a PA is pushing about 130db at a crazy crescendo peak), but mostly kept in the 100-110db range.

or..., they need that power just to drive them properly as they were designed to sound (at less than concert volume).

[Jimna]

so my ML's are 92db, does it make a differnce in the topend?  meaning if i give a sensitive speaker a shit-ton of juice will it have and adverse effect compared to a speaker rated at 85db?

[Will_S]

Great little amps for the price, I love mine.

remember the rule of watts vs. sensitivity.  Every added decibel requires a doubling of power.

Minor correction here, its 3dB that requires a doubling of power.  Thus:

So if your speakers are rated as 90db sensitivity....It works like this :

90db at 1m with 1w of power.
93db  with 2w
96db with 4w
99db with 8w
102db with 16w
105db with 32w, and that would be the end of what the T amp has.

Do you really listen to stuff at true concert level SPLs at home?  Your neighbors must love you...or be very far away.

[Jimna]

i do, neighbors dont complain but my wife does sometimes.

[Nick's Picks]

I live in the woods, I could run a jet engine in my living room w/o complaints.

efficent speakers being fed a lot of power..., yes, it can be a bad thing.  that is why speakes have that "power rating" spec that says they perform best between X and XX amount of power.
basically, you need less gain to get the same volume that low powered amp would require.

[macdaddy]

My old tamP sings when plugged into my heresies (klipsch), but their efficiency is in the 90db range (which is what makes them such a Good fit with a set low wattage tube amp).

[Todd R]

A few comments on the thread:

Yes, overall, I like the t-amps quite a bit.  I recently got a cheap t-amp for like $20 for background listening in the living room and it works great and has a very small footprint.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190359475356

For several years, I've owned a Trends TA-10.1:
http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/trends_ta10_e.html
http://www.sixmoons.com/audioreviews/trends/ta10.html
http://www.trendsaudio.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=37&Itemid=28

To be fair, this is the one Tim borrowed, and it is quite a bit more expensive than the Sonic T-amp, though both are based on the same tripath chip.  The Trends though is supposed to have much better capacitors, air core inductors, etc, and is supposed to be a better design.  I think the Trends amp sounds great, though I haven't tried a head-to-head with the cheap Lepai amp.

On SPLs:  Also, remember that the SPL you get from your stereo drops by 6db with each doubling in distance.  Here's a handy calculator:

http://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html

So I've got my Trends set up as my playback amp for my desktop/home office playback, together with my Soliloquy Sat 5 speakers.  The Sat5's are pretty inefficient at 87db, and the Trends TA10 only provides 15w/ch.  But for my desktop setup, I'm only 2-3 feet away from the Sat5's.  To get the same SPLs out of these speakers at 10 feet as I do with them set up at 3 feet, I'd need a 160 watts/ch amp.

Bottom line, the t-amp may not have enough oomph to drive a whole room unless you have very efficient speakers, but even with pretty inefficient speakers the t-amps do fine for your PC playback system.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

How do the T amps do with low impedance loads?

[bugg100]

Good question, the sonic impact and Dayton are spec'd at both 4 and 8 ohms though.

[ashevillain]

Silly question, but does anyone know where to get one of these without having to deal with the Customs Duties? In other words, I know they are all made in China but is there a USA distributor of this Sonic Impact T-Amp (or relative equivalent)?

[bgalizio]

Silly question, but does anyone know where to get one of these without having to deal with the Customs Duties? In other words, I know they are all made in China but is there a USA distributor of this Sonic Impact T-Amp (or relative equivalent)?

The Dayton amp from Parts Express should work for you.

[JasonSobel]

Silly question, but does anyone know where to get one of these without having to deal with the Customs Duties? In other words, I know they are all made in China but is there a USA distributor of this Sonic Impact T-Amp (or relative equivalent)?

The Dayton amp from Parts Express should work for you.

yes, and the link posted earlier in the thread, it's on sale for $34 (down from $45), through the end of February.

I think they went for that initially years ago.  Now Dayton makes them.  PartsExpress has the Dayton version for $44.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=300-380&FTR=dayton%20dta-1&CFID=5147068&CFTOKEN=56782318