Sonic Impact T-Amp : 20$ Integrated Amp !

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Crazy_Eddy

Crazy_Eddy

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Among many unusual reviews (here on TNT-Audio) this one will stand out, not because it is somehow "different" from our previous ones, rather because the product is DIFFERENT. It is so different than the rest that I dare to call it a real revolution. I'm talking of a sub-30$ (no typo!) integrated amplifier that embarasses the competition. Which competition, you may ask! There are no integrated amplifiers below, say, 150$!!! Indeed, the Sonic Impact T-Amp finds its natural competitors in a price range that is 100 times its price. At least. Now relax and read on.

This is NOT an April's Fool, a bad taste joke or a test to see how many of you blindly believe in what we say. No, this is the first part of a series of articles devoted to the most insane piece of equipment I've ever come across during the last 25 years of HiFi addiction. A battery-operated 6 watts per channel IC-based integrated amplifier that is so damn good sounding to cause harassment to many expensive products.
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Source: http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/t-amp_e.html

Woah! Awesome stuff !! :clap:
 
Whatever Chaos ! But just look at the prices !

And yeah, the Flat panel speaker comes with the T-Amp integrated :ohyeah: !
 
The T-amp was designed as a simple portable amp, and of course portable flat speakers to go with it. These were to bundle with your meagre iPod or CD player, when on the go. Neither was designed targetting high-end audio, the build quality of the T-amp itself should show you that (flimsy plastic box, plastic spring connectors for the speakers, etc).

I'm guessing the T-amp was more of luck, there was no significant R&D that went into designing it. The chip that they put into it - the Tripath TA2024 was more like a budget off-the-shelf IC (Tripath's website itself advertises this as a cost-effective/easy to use chip) and was even implemented using the same reference circuit recommended by Tripath but it ended up sounding surprisingly good! So while the T-amp had a huge helping of luck, there's nothing of this sort of magic in the flat panel speakers - they're cheap and sound cheap, nothing else :)

There are more "Digital" amps based on other Tripath/TI chips similar to this that are receiving a lot more focus now. Particularly the Panasonic XR series (XR-50,XR-55,XR-70 etc). There's even a 3200$ Integrated Amp thats based on a higher end version of the Tripath IC.

The downside with digital amplification was, the switching rate wasnt fast enough to keep up with the frequencies present in higher frequency audio, even though it was highly efficient - so it was mainly restricted to use in subwoofers. Seems the technology has finally matured enough to be implemented across the frequency spectrum :D

A lot of simple mods/tweaks can significantly increase the quality of the T-amp - the usual changing caps for higher quality ones, slight modifications in values of caps/resistors. Some even go all the way to design a new solid chassis for this amp, add high quality binding posts etc. Being designed for battery operation, people are pairing it up with 12v sealed lead-acid batteries as well and seeing massive improvements.

An updated "Son of T" amp is expected (yes, no doubt they got the naming idea from "Son of Zen" amps :P). Saw a preview pic of this model, it had a nice glossy finish, solid binding posts, etc. Waiting for the review to see how much better that is :)
 
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