New chip amplifier

[Bonsa1]

Thanks for your wise words Soundman Just to clarify a few things;


Battery supplies: I have built a sealed lead acid battery supply with inbuilt charger and monitor LEDs, the battery when fully charged = 13.4 volts with the LED illuminating at about 12volts, that equates to about six hour running. Note that a TA2020 Tripath chip maximum input voltage is 14.6volts with destruction at ~16volts


I to, with a lot of success and dabbled with passive power supplies, I am currently using a David Dalton design PS Sonic/Tripath I have also increased the capacitance across the PS into the amps, much increasing the lower end bass response.



Hey I built Elektor Class A headphone amp (fully descrete, no IC's) back in the early 80's I still have it and use it! It's a little gem!


Happy new year!


Cheers!

[hybridfiat]

I agree with most of the comments here. I have made several Tripath and gainclone amps of various types since posting originally but Id put the Peter Daniels at the top but not by much. I set out to do a ULD amp but the cost of good components was going to break the bank. Im not that obsessed with low distortion to want to spend a thou or more on an experiment.
Power supplies are alway critical, but with the gainclones overdoing the smoothing caps leads to losses in sound quality down the track. Ive tried quite a few combinations and a gain in bass (big bully buster caps) is usually accompanied by a loss of mid and treble.
If you go the Audiosector route be advised to use what Peter gives you.

[soundman]

In this situation where you have increased filter capacitor size...have you just used big electrolytic caps...or have you added smaller caps in paralell to them.

Large electrolytic caps have quite some self inductance....their low frequecy filtering ability will be great... but their capacity to deliver mid and high frequency demand will be poor.

so putting some much smaller value caps in paralell, perhaps in steps right down to .1uF I expect would restore the mid and high performance and still maintain that low frequency improvement.

cheers

[hybridfiat]

Cheers Soundman

[FreakyShotGlass]

Get an lm3886 and be done with it.

[soundman]

Mate regardless of the chip that is used, the quality of the result is still very much dependent on the design, PCB layout and the quality of the power supply.

Even then it is still only a chip amplifier....something designed for consumer electronics.

cheers

[Zaphod]

Can you please elaborate?

Certainly. Tripath™ amps are SPECIFICALLY designed with the following features in mind:

* Compact.
* Cheap to manufacture.
* Tough.
* Minimal heat sink requirements.
* Adequate sound quality, when driving resistive loads.

The Tripath™ amps meet all these requirements. At NO STAGE, were Tripath™ amps ever designed to be the best sounding amps available. Worse, because they use a relatively low switching frequency, they will experience significant difficulties when driving any load impedance less than 8 Ohms.

I doubt there is any profound technical knowledge behind these statements.

Doubt all you wish. You'd be wrong. My business is electronics, specifically focussed on audio. I know the Tripath™ products very well indeed. They tend to be significantly less reliable than the manufacturer's stated design goals and certainly less reliable than most chip amps.

Neither experience with anything better than the small Tripath amps. If it is just your opinion, fine, I would only say it's perhaps better to stick to woodworking then.

Hmmm. I suggest you ascertain your facts, before you make silly statements.

Want to know my opinion? One of my friends has the ULD amp and is selling it. It sounds lifeless, metalic and uninspiring. Ever tried a good TK2050 amp? Speaking of Ultra Low Distortion AND great sound!!

If your friend prefers a Tripath™ amp to the ULD amp, then he has rocks in his head, or socks in his ears. The ULD amp is VERY, VERY good indeed. It has no obvious audible, or measureable defects. The Tripath™ amps, OTOH, can easily be goaded into exhibiting severe problems.

Sure there are overpriced specimen of Tripath amps, but there are at least just as many of any other technology. Sure there have been overhyped and unrealistic raves and reviews on Tripath amps. But there's no reason to go so blunt on it saying it's a good thing they went belly-up.

The chip-sets were nonsensically over-priced on release and they didn't get much better.

Neither is there any reason to powerfully state that Tripath amplifiers are severely crippled.

I deal in facts, not hyperbole. There are other products, available for the same or less money, that offers superior performance. EXCEPT, I might add, in the area of efficiency and heat sink use.

To me and many others I'm afraid your opinion is rather severely crippled!

Fair enough. My problem is that I am constantly exposed to the very finest audio equipment available. When I compare products, I inevitably compare them to very high quality ones. The Tripath™ stuff does not rate.

What use is it anyway to advise a Class A amplifier and start moaning about high prices?!

The ULD amp is not a Class A amp.

After a few years even a severely overpriced Tripath amp will have paid itself back on the electricity bill! LOL!

Nonsense.

I'm sorry, but I just needed this straigtened out...

Your opinions are duly noted.


By the way, very nice little speakers there Hybridfiat!![/QUOTE]

Indeed they are.