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Inexpensive amps and inexpensive dacs

The Gainclone type chip amps like a LM3886 are really good value.They are NOT digital.They can sound surprisingly high end with the right speakers.They are best with 8 ohm speakers.
Some really interesting hardwired "scaffold" type ones coming out of China now.
 
Brown Bottle said:
I set up a system in my Daughter’s Uni accommodation using her Mac into an old Topping VX1 and her Grandad’s Arcam 2 speakers. It sounds pretty good to me, she’s chuffed to bits with it.

Cheers BB
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The Topping VX1 sounds way better than you'd expect!
 
There are a small number of manufacturers of DAC chips. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same chip is used in inexpensive and very expensive D/A converters.
 
mr sneff said:
The Topping VX1 sounds way better than you'd expect!
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I bought it to try out as a headphone amp for a laptop, it was very good too but Mrs BB complained about noise leakage from my headphones and I sold them on. My daughter now refers to it as 'her' amp so I don't think I'll get it back!

Cheers BB
 
John said:
There are a small number of manufacturers of DAC chips. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same chip is used in inexpensive and very expensive D/A converters.
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ESS, AKM etc all do ranges of chips at price points, but the performance benefit of the premium ones is definitely well into diminished returns territory.
120 dB compared to 110 dB SNR gets academic
 
jandl100 said:
Ah, fair enough.
The 303 is quite compact, though. ;)

If you want new, small, cheap and good I'd recommend the little TPA3116 chip amps. Stupidly good for the money, imo.

Search eBay for item number
274740955800

(For reasons that currently escape me, I can't copy the link to take you straight there!)
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I was scared of doing a search for this among such esteemed company. I have the Fosi Audio TPA3116 in my upstairs setup and cannot believe how wonderful it is for the size and cost. I have been told I am easily pleased with my choice of hardware, though.
 
You are right, the sound is utterly amazing for something that cost a fraction of the £3000 my other amps have cost. However, if they all came in plain boxes I feel pretty sure I would find the sound a little harsh on occasions. More problematic I find is the Topping E30 DAC. This again came at a fraction of the cost of my other DACs, but given the plain box situation, I am far from sure I would easily, if at all, distinguish it from the Brooklyn or the Chords.
 
The TPA3116 chips are shockingly good for what they are. Look at the TPA3255 if you need more power or better quality audio.

Couple of cool things with the 3116:
You can run them off a single PP3 9v battery at modest levels for a surprisingly long time. We ran one for a bit of bbq background music (volume you could talk over) in the garden and it lasted a good few of hours.
Not seen this commercially, but I spliced one in inline with my laptop (Dell) power adapter, they run nicely off 19v and it gave me a decent little amp for some tunes, just add small passive full range speakers.


The infineon Merus MA12070 chip is very similar to the TPA3116, but better in every way IMHO. if you want a small classD module this is the one to go for. Audiophonics do a small board you can get from other resellers too. Just be wary there are 2 versions one for analogue input and one digital (I2C from memory).
 
Although I haven't heard every chip amplifier in existence I have owned two ... from SMSL and Topping, the latter of which I still own, I unfortunately can't agree with comments like 'giant killers' etc. but concede there are probably better ones.

They make music, quite good music in isolation but I needed to purchase a valve buffer to make it (Topping) really listenable. - Without it was too mechanical and sterile especially but not exclusively in the higher registers. Even after that it was not on a level of decent (more expensive) Class A/B amplification. Going active with Kef's & B&W unfortunately still showed some of the Class D traits though to a lesser degree.

It made me somewhat disillusioned with the current state of Class D.
 
I have here compared, Hypex,Purifi and Pascal based class-D amplifiers to the Benchmark AHB2 and traditional class-A/B amps as long as the amplifier is capable of driving the loudspeaker properly there is no difference in sound quality whatsoever.
Keith
 
Have to say i too am mighty impressed with the e30, it seems to have the balance between detail, dynamics and shrillness mastered
 
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