I will be at Rocky Mountian Audiofest RMAF Oct. 12-15 in room 1021 (1000 Tower, level 10)

Please stop by the Audiomagus room 1021 to say hello and to hear all the fine T-Amps we have! (plus lots of other goodies).

See you there. Aloha.

www.audiomagus.com

Audiomagus is authorized for Trends and The Sonic Impact and Super-T amps.

If you look closely you'll see that I am there, too. ;) Check out the TweaKits.

You guys have been bugging me for years about putting together T-Amp modifying kits. Or asking - "where can I get this or that part?" Well now you can find it at Audiomagus. They have put together the TweaKits following my advice. It's a handy way to get the parts you need but may not be able to find.

Another great thing is that I have talked Audiomagus into shipping worldwide, for all you T-amp fans in the far corners of the globe. Email and request for T-Amp help comes to me form all over the world - every continent and ocean but one (guess which). So I convinced Audiomagus to offer world shipping. I'm really happy that they do. People living in North America are spoiled, they don't know how difficult and expensive it can be to get the parts you want!

The kits are ready, but I'm still working on the instructions to go with them. It's basically the same information you'll find here on this site, just cleaned up and reformatted for each kit.

I am very happy to be helping Audiomagus serve the T-Amp community. I know how hard it has been for some of you to find amps and parts.

Wow! The site has now passed half a million page views since it opened in February of last year.
Somebody loves T-AMP. =) I'm proud of my little site.

To celebrate this half million milestone, I would like to set up a "Rogues Gallery" of T-AMP modifications. Have you modified your T-AMP? Got Photos? I'll post them in the Rogues Gallery. You can click to email me to find out what to submit.

Trends Audio T-AMP

You may have seen the new little T-Amp form Trends Audio in Hong Kong.
This is an amp based the same Tripath chip found in The famous Sonic Impact and also the Super-T amp.
Trends Audio has come out with their own version, in a small box. Read more here.

Measurements of a modified Sonic Impact are posted. The modified version measurements are overlain on the stock.
New PSU measurements posted.

New, lighter site background color for better legibility. About time!

You like measurements? We got 'em!
The new measurements are in and posted. Check it out.

All new and fresh, these are thorough measurements of 4 T-Amps - the classic Sonic Impact 5066, the new Super-T, Fenice 20a, and the AMP6 from 41hz.com

Each amp is measured on an Audio Precision tester, the industry standard for audio device measurements. You will find graphs for THD/Power, S/N, frequency response and crosstalk. Lots of information in these real world tests.

Big thanks to Evan Shutlz who ran all the tests!

I have begun a close look at the new Super-T amp and will publish modifications soon.
This is a nice sounding amp out of the box, but we can make it better!

Great news. A friend and amp designer for a very large company has agreed to run some T-Amps thru a battery of tests. Look for a full range of tests and measurement graphs here soon. The amps tested will be the original Sonic Impact, the new Super-T, A 41hz.com AMP6 and one of my modified Fenice boards. All tested on the industry standard AP test equipment. We will also be attempting to test the IMD distortion of output filter inductor types. It should prove to be an eye and ear opener.

Happy Birthday to the site.

One year old as of Feb. 1. Over 220,000 hits this year. Maybe there is a little interest in this T-amp thing? Last month the site came within a few Kilobytes of bandwidth limit. What the heck are you guys looking at? There ain't no naked ladies or online card games here. =)

"The negative supply to the the T amp enters the board via a short (10mm ?) PCB track which then connects to the rest of the board via one leg of the power socket, this passes through a plated through hole to the other side of the board.

On a few that I have worked on for customers, I have found that the soldering was defective on the top side of the board, around this leg of the external power socket. This was causing a resistance of up to 2 Ohms between the negative wire and the Tripath IC!. Soldering around the leg of the socket until the solder flows properly into the PCB hole cures it"

My work with the Fenice 20 board from Italy has been rewarding. I like this board! The Fenice uses the same great sounding chip as the Sonic Impact, but on a much larger, better built board. The Fenice seems much more reliable and has lower DC offset and ultrasonic noise on the outputs. This is now my board of choice.

But you will still find lots of information here for modding the Sonic!

Sorry there hasn't been any news lately. But there will be soon. I will be trying a great looking Tripath evaluation board that arrived today from Italy, and a new case as well.

There will be changes and updates to the amp modification pages as a result of much email traffic with readers of these pages. The DIY instruction will be made more clear and easy to follow. This site was never intended as a DIY guide, but many people seem to take it as such. So, I will try to make better, easier.

My crazy looking Mauna Kea amp is out of production. A fun case, but too much work to modify. So good-bye to "Captain Nemo's Robot Espresso Maker". Hello, soon, to a new amp.

I hope to improve and expand the modification pages for those of you who wish to modify your own Sonic Impact amps.

Aloha
MM

Conclusions:

The Tripath amp IS capable of good bass, it just needs not to be choked at the input and outputs.
Keeping the SMD electrolytics out if the signal path helps detail and tone balance .
A good strong power supply gives the chip the dynamics it needs. No buzz, hiss or rizz. Why use a battery?
Panasonic FM caps also lowers switching hash on the power rail
Detail is very much helped by a better signal path.

I need to measure and look at waveforms to verify that the amp now has more headroom, it sounds like it does. Replacing the output filter caps and Zobel will come next, though the improvements are likely to be subtle.