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A box arrived today from Global Mart in Utah. I'm glad I hadn't seen the email they sent after I ordered it, which said the Sonic Impact amp was out of stock and not expected until mid-June.I plugged the cute little plastic box (it has both fit and finish) between my Meridian 508.24 CD player and Silverline Sonatina II speakers with a generic dual-RCA to stereo miniplug cable and solid-core CAT5 for speaker wire. After filling the room with a burnt plastic smell from a 12V wall wart I got at a yard sale for $2, I fitted up a 9V wall wart and sat down to listen.
Japan's "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" CD was still in the CD player from last night, so I gave it a spin to note any differences there might be between my Blue Circle preamp/Gainclone amp combo and this teeny plastic toy. One difference was the bass. Right away, I had to turn down the subwoofer! Goooood bass. Clear. Deep. Room filling.
I could tell a few bars into the first song that I was hearing something new. Before I could even get seated, my head was bobbing up and down to the music. Whole melody lines I had never noticed before were floating in the air between the melody lines I recognized. I've had this CD for 20 years now, and the LP for a couple of years before that, and to hear anything new, let alone new melody lines, was quite a shock. A pleasant shock. Nice. I liked the way that many instruments were playing at once and none really distracted from the others. There's some really cool bite and clank to the sound, in all the appropriate places.
So, the upside is detail, clarity, a mystical tunefulness, and a truly new perspective (for me) on the music, maybe not the right one, but who's to say? It isn't often that $30 provides a whole new listening experience.
It's a little early in the game to criticize this thing considering it's had a whole 90 minutes of burn-in, and the cables and underpowered supply were the first random things I pulled out of a drawer, but I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that this amp will make all others obsolete, or anything like that.
For me, the obvious downside was the near-total emotionlessness of the sound. Both of my feet were bouncing up and down on the floor, but my heart was grumbling, "So what?" I didn't *feel* anything from the sound. Whatever the opposite of goosebumps are, I had them. Goosepits, maybe. My head kept interjecting, "Neat!" and "Wow, listen to that!" but my tear ducts were very dry.
Who knows, maybe after it has another 2 hours of burn-in, or after I put in the new AA NiMHs I got at Walgreens, I'll be weeping over the deep emotion in a Spike Jones rave-up and convince you all to trade in your favorite amp for one of these. Or not. For $30, who cares? That's like half a tank of gas these days.
Follow Ups:
Have you tried using decent sized sealed lead acid batteries - the sort made by Yuasa etc for burglar alarm backup etc? A 12V 6 Ah one would last for days between charging, costs very little and you're 100% free of mains problems.
Yep, I tried a Yuasa 12V SLA battery last night. I have 4 of them on hand because I use them to power the Gainclone that this Tripath amp may just be replacing. Powering a power amp with batteries is a thing worth doing, for sure, which is why I had built a Gainclone in the first place.It took me many tries to figure out which terminals to connect the leads to (almost melting a couple of the spring terminals inside the amp in the process), so I will record it here for anyone else who wants to connect wires to the battery holders on their Sonic Impact T-amp. Use the outer bottom + and - terminals towards the back.
I will say that things already sound much better, much better than very good to begin with.
...in the speakers if I turn the volume up to about 12. I have a wall wart measuring 12.56VDC on my VOM.I know it's only 15 watts but wonder what I'm doing wrong. Gonna leave it playing on low volume over the weekend and check it next week.
This amp does not clip gracefully. I was playing the Reference Recording, Copland CD last night and the bass drum hits let out a cracking non musical splat crackle pop. I'm assuming this is clipping...echh !
The first time I turned the amp up too loud, I heard what sounded like handclaps at the peaks, or bursts of white noise. I turned it down, and the noise has not returned.If only one amp is in use, efficient speakers are pretty necessary. I'm planning to get a second SI-5, not because I really need more volume, but because I want better stereo separation, and dual mono with one channel of each amp connected to a biwiring post on the speakers should be sweet.
you waste those lovely batteries. Let the chip mellow for about 60 days. Tripath breaks in incrementally over this time period IF it is left on ALL THE TIME:this is key. Then, with the batteries, you will have something verrrrry special...I am using one with Eminence 12" coaxial on open baffle, and the result is flat out amazing!!!
I will definitely try that. I can tell already that this way lies some serious magic. Last night I was listening after I connected the 12V battery to it, and sounds just gelled and expanded in a way I had never heard before, and then disappeared again, a couple of times in sequence. I've heard that kind of thing happen as an amp was burning in before, but it was really dramatic to hear things sound so stunningly great for 30 seconds and then shift back to something more ordinary.I have also stopped trying to run the CD player directly into it because the sound is just too dry that way. Maybe after all the burn-in is done this will work better, but for now a tube preamp definitely helps with the listenability factor.
Only about two hours on mine but the wife was laughing and asked if I could get rid of the tube monoblocks now ! I agree with your statements. I wonder how much this amps sound will change with a good 200 hours on it. I must say it makes my 96 db. {ef.} ESP Concert Grandes sing ! It doesn't have the toe tapping quality of my Quicksilver M60 tube monoblocks but the detail is wonderful for a $30 amp ! $ to Value is off the scale. IMHO !!! {Quick note, the Rat Shack NiMh rechargeable batteries cost more than the amp ! Noise floor with the batteries is dead quiet. } A good "tweeking" friend and I are planning on adding good quality RCA inputs and speaker binding posts, and ERS paper inside next.
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