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Lepai chinese mini stereo amp, nudes

ke4mcl

ke4mcl

Super Member
Banned
these little amps are all over ebay and other electronics sites. some vendors call them mosfet amps, some call them tripath, some call them class d. for the price (aprox $14 shipped) i had to satisfy my curiosity and buy one just to see how it was built. well, you get what you pay for!

looking at the pics you will see some interesting things...
1) it arrived broken. volume knob was tweaked and bezel around knob broken off. the plastic used is really cheap stuff.

2) the bottom of the pc board is coated in genuine chinese dust. this one left me confused as the rest of the device seems clean including the flipside of the pc board. maybe all the pc boards sat in an outdoor assembly area and they are too lazy to clean the dust off? even the thermal grease has it caked in.

3) look at the amp chip soldering job. no need to comment. what chip is it? i dont know and wont be finding out as i dont have smt soldering gear and i dont want to risk breaking the solder connections.

4) the markings, oh yeah, fun stuff! top says its a lepai, front says its a ropai. look at the BOSE reference, "the amplifier is use BOSE power IC". in case you miss it on the case its written on the pc board also. i wonder if the folks at BOSE are happy about this? can't wait to crank up those 700w's!

5) finally, how to power the little bugger up? no power adapter or cable included. at least they do tell you what voltage and polarity to use.

fun times!

tomorrow i'll reassemble it all with fresh thermal grease and run the weewee out of it to see what it does.

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what;s the deal with Bose written on it ?(please, no Bose bashing , jokes etc.....) As u mentioned, was $14.00.........so what can one really expect, and that included shipping ......I would think if it works at all was worth the money
 
A lot of those tripath amp chips started life intended for use in TV sets... I suppose this is one way of getting rid of the over-runs.

If the chips themselves are fed decent clean power and properly heatsinked they can sound surprisingly good - if you get a lucky one.
 
addaz said:
"This is use Bose" should be AK's "All your bases are belong to us!"
Click to expand...

I'm in agreement, AK has a rich lexicon, doesn't hurt to add to it:yes: (my favorites are Racoon the woogers and Box of stink)

Here's a quick knock-off(not unlike the unit in question) (i'll try to think of a better one);
usebose.jpg


That little unit is a real,uh, interesting piece of work, for $14 shipped it's probably worth it, in a morbid sense. I can only assume the 700wmax is the product number, since directly below that it says 25w rms...which may be kinda accurate:scratch2:, didn't cut yourself on that faceplate did you?, i've seen thicker knife blades:D

THE AMPLIFIER IS USE BOSE!:D
 
That is quite funny. For $14.00 no matter what is is cheap entertainment.:yes:

And how may of use have "Genuine Chinese Dust"?:banana:

It may turn out to sound ok or even better.

Thanks for the pictures.:thmbsp:


Edit: I almost forgot the most important thing..."This is use Bose power IC.
Start looking for those 901s. :)
 
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i'm hoping its a least a tripath chip on there but i'm not holding my breath. i own quite a few little tripath amps and they all have a bunch of inductors on the board. this little guy has 1 object that *might* be an inductor. the way it sounds will tell. tripath amps are real crisp and breakup awful nasty when pushed hard. i'm honestly expecting a TDA knockoff chip.
 
I got one of these several months back just for fun.
Sounds OK on Warfedale Meltons. I learned to pull the plug from the back instead of using the power switch though. OUCH!
 
ive considered getting one of those for my truck, i believe they can run off the car voltage... for 14 bucks it wouldnt be too much of a loss if I blow it up when i wire it in, lol

definitely interested in hearing your review :)
 
"This is use Bose" ORLY?

I have more or less the same experience with the Lepais (tried 3 of them).
The SMSL amp03 is the one to look out for ime (~30 bucks shipped), decent build, great sound.
 
mackinthebox said:
ive considered getting one of those for my truck, i believe they can run off the car voltage... for 14 bucks it wouldnt be too much of a loss if I blow it up when i wire it in, lol

definitely interested in hearing your review :)
Click to expand...

I don't believe you can do that without modding it. Vehicle voltage runs around 13.8 volts. Lepai runs them on 12 volts and I've heard that they won't even take that little increase in voltage. I had thought the same thing about using one in my boat.
 
motorstereo said:
I don't believe you can do that without modding it. Vehicle voltage runs around 13.8 volts. Lepai runs them on 12 volts and I've heard that they won't even take that little increase in voltage. I had thought the same thing about using one in my boat.
Click to expand...
They'll run jut fine off of 13.8V, I have no idea if the supply in a boat/car is constant, if there are too many fluctuations you have a good chance of killing these kind of little amps.
 
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