Tripath amps abound lately

[Mallette]

For the curious (I was) who have yet to experience one of these newfangled T-amps, may I recommend the new Dayton DTA-1 Class T Digital Amplifier 15 WPC from Parts Express: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=300-380. For the $39.18 price tag, you can’t go wrong with the simply amazing sound!

If you are less than impressed, give it to a non-audiophile friend; it will probably be the best piece of gear they have ever owned.

Rick

If you are not impressed, send it to me along with 2000.00 and I will perform my ingenious tweak that involves, well, just trust me...

Dave

[Coytee]

You think my spreadsheets will get more accurate after 100 hours?

The spreadsheet I used for our taxes did.... [^o)] [:^)] []

[Blvdre]

Blvdre,

This is the first I've heard of Virtue. It's about the same price as the HLLY T amp-90.

The Virtue has a sub woofer out, which is a very nice feature. I haven't noticed another T amp with this option.

Yes, the sub out is a nice little extra. I had the chance to check this amp out over the weekend, sort of a quick first impression. I finished one of my crossovers, so had only 1 channel hooked up, but liked what I heard. Piano and female vocal sounded very nice, stand-up bass clear and articulate, lacking a bit in weight (compared to my Wright 3.5's), overall sound was smooth and detailed. I like what I'm hearing so far, definitely better than the Trends, although I don't want to sound like I'm beating up on the trends - it's a nice amp for the $100 I paid.

[Daddy Dee]

Blvdre,

Thanks for sharing your impressions so far on the Virture. It certainly has a power advantage over the Trends or Super T amp.

That is a most interesting observation of the stand up bass sound rerlative to the Wrights. I drove my Khorns for a while with the Wright 3.5. It is a fine example of SET amplification.

[Marvel]

Cirrus Logic ended up with the intellectual property. This may be where some of the technology has gone:

http://www.cirrus.com/en/products/pro/areas/PA67.html#PA134_open

Bruce

[Daddy Dee]

Bruce,

Thanks for the link. That's interesting.

Ran across a thread somewhere on the net where the poster was critical of one manufacturer for using "old tripath technology" building amps. The manufacturer responded by saying that the tripath chips were not in any way obselete and they had enough of them to keep building amps as long as anyone could imagine.

I'm guessing Tripath must have had a truly substantial inventory which was liquidated after bankruptcy. There has to be an interesting story in this. I've always been sort of sad about Tripath hitting bottom like they did.

[Blvdre]

Blvdre,

Thanks for sharing your impressions so far on the Virture. It certainly has a power advantage over the Trends or Super T amp.

That is a most interesting observation of the stand up bass sound rerlative to the Wrights. I drove my Khorns for a while with the Wright 3.5. It is a fine example of SET amplification.

I've had the Wrights for a while, and am a big fan, I really like the sound. Having said that, part of the reason I picked up the Virtue is "fill in duty" while I try to sell the Wrights to fund a Transcendent Sound SEOTL Kit project. I've read a lot of positive comments about this amp, and have to hear it for myself. Plus it'll be a lot of fun putting it together. Or maybe I'll just be fat and happy with the Virtue, and put the money into my home like a normal responsible adult would do. Ha.

[Daddy Dee]

I think you'll enjoy the TSOTL.

A friend built one of those for me and it was amazing how they sounded on Klipschorns at 1.5wpc.

After a while I picked up another one and ran them as bridged monoblocks at 4wpc. Bruce Rozenblit told me at the time that the SE OTL was teh best sounding amp he had ever built.

[Blvdre]

I think you'll enjoy the TSOTL.

A friend built one of those for me and it was amazing how they sounded on Klipschorns at 1.5wpc.

After a while I picked up another one and ran them as bridged monoblocks at 4wpc. Bruce Rozenblit told me at the time that the SE OTL was teh best sounding amp he had ever built.

That's good to hear! The only criticism I've read about this amp is that one owner found it to be too neutral, and really that's not so much a criticism as a personal preference. Since I only listen at moderate levels, I have no rservations that 1.5W will be plenty for me.

I finished the second crossover last night, so will get things hooked up this weekend and give the Virtue a more thorough listening.

[nu2toobs]

You think my spreadsheets will get more accurate after 100 hours?

The spreadsheet I used for our taxes did....

HAHAHA!!!![]

[Daddy Dee]

Blvdre,

I can see why someone might find the SE OTL to be too neutral, however, my impressions are more favorable.

The SE OTL does have it's own reference signature that IMO is sort of hard to describe. Usually folks contrast tube or SS sound, but that is not quite satisfactory. If someone described the SE OTL as highly accurate, articulate, fast, without the warm halo of SET mids... the reader would think...OK, it sounds like SS. The sound is not SS sound.

I did find it pleasant. Bruce R says the SE OTL takes a fast preamp to keep up with it.

I'm looking forward to hear your impressions of the Virtue.

[Blvdre]

DD, Interesting comments about the SE OTL. All desirable qualities in an amp, but as you pointed out, I do wonder if I'll miss the SET warmth and find the SE OTL too neutral. From what I understand though, the Wright amps tend to be on the neutral side of the SET sound, so maybe the tonal difference wouldn't be that pronounced. There's only one way to find out....

[Daddy Dee]

Yeh. When I heard the SE OTL's, I didn't think I was really missing anything compared to the Wrights. just a different reference flavor.

Erik Mandaville, one forum member who build several SE OTLs said they were surprisingly tricky to lay out wiring in the chassis so as not to cause hum. For a reason I can't comprehend, the most minute changes make a big difference. It's certainly not an insurmountable problem, just takes some patience if adjustments are needed. I think he was pushing wires around with chop sticks to optimize.

This is why, I believe, Bruce R urges builders to follow plans exactly. Other amps wouldn't be this way, but for whatever reason...

the end result is very sweet and buying new tubes doesn't take a home e quity loan to accomplish.

[Blvdre]

Good to know. I am already a stickler for following documentation because of my work, so I'm predisposed to follow docs to the letter (even though some of our documentation here at work is lousy I'm comforted by the fact that others have built these, so maybe they'll be willing to share if I get into a spot. I imagine Bruce is pretty responsive as well - I see he posts often to his website's message board.

My plan for preamp is to (possibly) build a passive w/goldpoint attenuators (monos) and an elna switch. I didn't see a spec for the input impedanceof the SE OTL, so will send Bruce a note and ask about compatibility w/passives.

[Daddy Dee]

This HLLY T amp-90 with the TA2022 chip is sort of a headscratcher. The sound is good, but I've had a couple of odd problems.

I'd mentioned I got an excellent price for a dog on Ebay shipped directly from China. I was impressed, but this unit goes into some sort of protect mode and only plays intermittently. There seems to be no rhyme or reason about when it will work and there is no way to reset the unit. The seller suggested that I keep the amp and add some sort of cooler, ( I suppose he meant a heat sink) to the chip. He said they had trouble with the 2022 chip and heat.) I didn't receive that suggestion especially well and told him I'd send it back for a refund. He did offer a partial refund of an unspecified sum if I'd keep the unit. Haven't yet sent it back.

Decided I'd play it safe and order one from Paul Mackenzie at P-macaudio.com. I'd bought my T amp-20 from him and have been pleased with the unit and doing business with P-macaudio.com.

Got the T amp-90 from P-mac this week and was surprised at the white noise it produced. It's not audible under music, but is enough to be a deal breaker at idle. Here's two odd things: First, the white noise is loudest when the volume is at it's minimum. It diminishes significantly as the volume knob is turned up. Does this make sense to anyone? I don't know why that should be. Second, the other unit, which played only intermittently had no noticeable white noise when it was cooperating.

I'd like to have a T amp with an honest 45wpc, which is about what the T-90 will do, but really don't know what to make of these first two examples.

[Mallette]

DD, that noise situation DOES make sense, but I am not clear enough on it to explain. Bear in mind these are digital, not analog, so they have different issues. Mike Bentz could probably explain.

Dave

[Daddy Dee]

Thanks Dave.

[33RPM]

What do those class-D Tripath chips sound like in comparison to tubes? I've toyed around with the idea of building two chipamp boards as a selectable output stage for my SET amp (Bottlehead S.E.X.) for those times where 2W/channel won't cut it. I'm not a fan of solid state, though, and wonder how much "tubeiness" one would lose after shunting the signal from the smaller triodes through a Tripath chip instead of a power triode and autoformer.....the plus side would be higher wattage and much better damping factor than the SET output stage.

Has anybody tried this (tube pre, Tripath power)?

[Mallette]

IMHO, a really good digital amp combines the best of SS (it's accuracy) with the warmth of tubes. That's about it.

Dave

[Daddy Dee]

What do those class-D Tripath chips sound like in comparison to tubes? I've toyed around with the idea of building two chipamp boards as a selectable output stage for my SET amp (Bottlehead S.E.X.) for those times where 2W/channel won't cut it. I'm not a fan of solid state, though, and wonder how much "tubeiness" one would lose after shunting the signal from the smaller triodes through a Tripath chip instead of a power triode and autoformer.....the plus side would be higher wattage and much better damping factor than the SET output stage.

Has anybody tried this (tube pre, Tripath power)?

I have driven the Teac A-L700P (tripath 3 channe 30wpc) with both Juicy Music and Sunfire tube preamps. The results were very good to my ears.

Have not tried that with these TA2024 chip based amps, though. I'm a fan of the Super T-amp and had wondered about how it would do with a tube pre in front. One other forum member, DeanG, mentioned that he tried some different combinations in front of the Super T-amp but didn't find any of them an improvement over running that little guy stand alone. I don't know why the Teac Tripath amp did so well relative to the Super T, but I don't know which chip was employed in the Teac.

As to how much these little guys sound like tubes, I think that's a pretty subjective call. I have noted, though, that there are lots of tube amp fans that are also fond of the tripath and other D-class amps.