Please Explain "Mini Amp" Phenomenon to Old School Member

[michaelm101]

I see them all over the Internet and Amazon. Do these amps replace our vintage amps?
Can they sonically rival the old stuff while drawing less power?

Thank you in advance!

 

[Katalyst]

Only your ears can tell you if the sound is good.

 

[Bill S]

See Class D amplifier.

https://www.analog.com/en/resources/glossary/class-d.html#:~:text=Definition,that%20needs%20to%20be%20reproduced.

Yes, they can replace an old amplifier design.

 

[rustnrot]

I still can't "go there" yet but I did dive into the world of LM3886 composite AB amps and could not be more thrilled! Sounds fantastic and still looks like a proper amp!

Neurochrome Modulus 86 Build

New build on nifty chassis from aliexpress. I added a driver board for the meters. The gold knob adjusts the meter sensitivity. The meters are for show only, not calibrated. The bare boards were purchased from Neurochrome. LM3886 based. The music jumps out of the blackest quiet I've ever...

audiokarma.org

 

[Semanon]

They sound great, they are cheap, they use less power, they take up less space, they can contain DACs and streaming receivers. They can be balanced. They can include interesting and useful features.

They have no phono stage (but you can get an outboard one), they don’t have a tuner - they won’t replace a Marantz receiver (if you want to listen to OTA broadcasts).

They have no nostalgia, there will be no one bidding up a cheap Class D amp 50 years from now. They are not DIY repairable (maybe by a select few). They are made as cheaply as possible for their price point.

Their life expectancy is unknown. Maybe 2 years, maybe 10 years, probably not 40 of 50 years. They contain technology that may or may not be supported in 10 or 15 years.

Younger generations are ripe for giving up earbuds and experiencing what speakers can do for one’s listening, when you are sitting still. However, they are not going to spend four figures for an amp or a system without some confidence that there is value. Companies like Topping and Ayima and Fosi are filling this need.

In short, yes, they can replace a vintage device with ease. But how they will fare in the future is unknown. If you will like them is very personal. I will always keep a couple vintage pieces around, but I’m not ashamed to say that there is a lot of convenience, value and pleasure to be found using these.

Bottom line: they are cheap. Buy one and try it yourself. If it sounds good to you, it is good to you. Do your research, don’t buy just cuz its cheap.

 

[sqlsavior]

Today, you can spend about $35 and get an amp that is capable of reference sound, as a basis for comparisons on tonality, colorations and clarity, imaging, you name it. I could run my quads on one and save about $3365 compared to a new tube PrimaLuna amp. Instead I have a $200 Chi-fi class A amp, so am only saving about $3200!

 

[AudioAvarice]

Mini amps aren't new, check out the Luxkit A801MKII, it can do 40w of class A/B or 10w of Class A, and can be found second hand cheaper than these class D things.

 

[swechsler]

FWIW, I've purchased a bunch of these, for various reason; mostly in situations where I didn't want my system to give off much heat (such as in my tiny office), or take up much space (like replacing the original amp in my Cambridge Soundworks model 11). They are class D and usually based on the TI TPA-3116D2 chip. You can get them as cheap as 10 bucks on Amazon, without power supply; I've had success using a ~20V power supply scrounged from a discarded laptop. They do seem to be somewhat fragile, as I accidentally destroyed a couple (I think by shorting the outputs while music was playing), and had one recently die (one channel stopped working) just out of the blue. But it won't cost you much to try one out and see if it's for you, especially if you can dig up an old power supply (they'll run on anywhere between 4.5-26V, but the output power is dependent on the input power and voltage).

Most of the models, even the cheap ones, come with a makeshift case (actually just a top and bottom board) and a heat sink, and sometimes include a bare wire to barrel connector adapter, so you can make your power supply work as long as it's the correct voltage. They go from anywhere to barebones (just an analog input) to including Bluetooth, a USB connector (so you can connect directly to a computer) and/or a headphone jack. There's even a model that has a 2.1 output (with low pass crossover) to drive a passive sub in addition to left/right speakers.

 

[geezin']

I picked up a Topping PA3s when my Fisher 440T needed work to fill in until repairs completed. That was over two years ago and it's been my main for about a year now while the 440T is in the bedroom. It sounds great and the noise floor is low. I'm impressed with the quality both sound and build. It does what many more dollars will do just as well.

 

[twiiii]

To many draw backs for me to even think about them. Though I do know they do the job for some folks. But as I am not into extremely efficient speakers and prefer larger listening spaces. I gave on amps smaller than 75 watts per channel back in the mid 70's.

 

[bob smog]

Yep, sound great - tube amps getting dusty…

 

[gadget73]

Some of them sound good, some do not. I use one for my TV powering a little set of speakers. Sounds pretty good doing that, but if I connect better speakers it goes downhill badly. For what I need it to do though, its pretty hard to beat for 25 bucks and taking up almost no space.

 

[spark1]

I see them all over the Internet and Amazon. Do these amps replace our vintage amps?
Can they sonically rival the old stuff while drawing less power?

Thank you in advance!

Yes.

 

[WillVT]

Today, you can spend about $35 and get an amp that is capable of reference sound, as a basis for comparisons on tonality, colorations and clarity, imaging, you name it. I could run my quads on one and save about $3365 compared to a new tube PrimaLuna amp. Instead I have a $200 Chi-fi class A amp, so am only saving about $3200!

That's something I hadn't even thought of. Are these little class D amps safe with the difficult loads of the original Quad 57's? I
have a Fosi bt20a, with the tpa3116 chip. I still haven't unpacked my Quads from our move this summer.

 

[WillVT]

To many draw backs for me to even think about them. Though I do know they do the job for some folks. But as I am not into extremely efficient speakers and prefer larger listening spaces. I gave on amps smaller than 75 watts per channel back in the mid 70's.

A lot of these amps are higher than 75wpc. My Fosi bt20a is rated at 100wpc. The bt20a Pro is rated 300wpc.

 

[petes'picks]

I was slow to try one myself but decided to purchase an Aiyima A01 Pro this Christmas to replace my sons computer system (logitech). I got it because it has a variable mini jack on the the rear to control a little Energy 8" sub I had laying around. It uses a previous generation chip but for a small sum of $63 I decided to get it for him, still on sale yesterday.

I first tried it with a small pair of Yamaha surround speakers because he didnt want large speakers on his desk. Those Yamahas are really hard to push as they are only 82db sensitivity. Sounded ok but absolutely needed the sub and it seemed to struggle driving those 82db speakers, I tried cranking it all the way and it still was lacking a full sound.

So I grabbed a pair of PSB Alphas to see if they were too big for him, we were blown away by the sound even without the sub attached. That little amp pushed those PSB speakers as good as I have ever heard them and have tried them with plenty of respected vintage receivers. Volume at 1 oclock is way louder than with the inefficient Yamahas. Ran it pretty loud for about 45 mins until wife came complaining to us and the power supply and amp never got over 85 degrees.

This is my second experience with Class D, the other was when helping a friend figure out why his PSB towers sounded thin using a Peachtree amp when that same amp sounded amazing driving some nice KEF monitors for near field listening. My current opinion is that Class D amps like easy loads, for near field listening they are amazing and better than a whole bunch of vintage vintage gear but until I hear one fill a room pushing difficults loads I am not going to say its better than a better A/B amp.

WIth that said, my son is esstatic with the sound of his system and to be honest I believe it sounds better than the most of the vintage amp sections I have heard, but if you dont have resonably efficient speakers or trying to fill a large room with loud music I would approach with caution.

 

[sqlsavior]

That's something I hadn't even thought of. Are these little class D amps safe with the difficult loads of the original Quad 57's? I
have a Fosi bt20a, with the tpa3116 chip. I still haven't unpacked my Quads from our move this summer. I may have to try this out.

A Topping T-21 chip amp was fine with the Quads. It had similar sound to my reference amp in terms of reproduction, except that it added an edge that I didn't care for, so I kept looking. A class-D ICE module Rotel had no hard edge, but just wasn't as clear as I'd hoped. I ended up with the amp in this thread driving the Quads:

John Linsley Hood JLH 1969 Class A audio amplifier REPRO

New Krell amplifiers come from Southeast Asia and cost less than $200, right? Just checking Anyway, the new device discussed here arrived on Saturday. Looking sharp! Naturally, before hooking it up I had to open it to see if there was any obvious damage, loose connections etc from...

audiokarma.org

 

[war2thegrave]

It started out as a novelty, but will become the norm in a short time from now.
Carbon footprint taxes and ESG scores will put a strain on every part of the supply chain and everyone involved will be forced to produce and ship smaller, lighter, and more efficient products and consumers will have to be more careful how they allocate their power consumption as energy prices increase.

The big power hungry stuff will still be available to those well heeled enough to afford it and the average person will be less likely to come into contact with it.

The 'vintage' holdouts might get another decade, two if their lucky as it becomes exponentially more difficult to keep the equipment running anywhere close to original spec.

 

[spark1]

A lot of these amps are higher than 75wpc. My Fosi bt20a is rated at 100wpc. The bt20a Pro is rated 300wpc.

ASR testing of the TPA3255-driven BT20A Pro showed 145W into a 4 ohm load and 100W into an 8 ohm load, using the 48V power brick. Great sounding little amp. Very linear from 20Hz to around 18KHz, with minor load-based variations beyond that.

 

[Adaboy5]

I had two SMSL amplifiers AO200 and AO100. They produced good sound and enough power. I gave the AO100 to my sister with some Polk book shelf speakers and sold the 200.