TBI Millenia MG3 Class BD Integrated Audio Amplifier..A Modern Day Giant Killer!

DaveC113 · « **Reply #40 on:** 29 Jul 2012, 03:30 am »

Quote from: OzarkTom on 29 Jul 2012, 03:03 am

The amp takes about 100 hours to fully break in. The amp never sounds harsh, but it will open up as it beaks in.

I have two SLA 12v scooter batteries hooked in series for 24V and a 24V smart charger. I forget the brand.

With the battery, the noise floor drops and you hear more detail. This results in more tranpaency, more depth, and a bigger soundstage. Small background details are also more noticeable.

The 24V is going to give you 32 watts per channel, the 12 V will probably give you about half of that.

Cardas posts improved the amp by about 30% fom top to bottom. It also added more magic with a bigger soundstage.

I have never heard it clip, even when I had the 88db Classico 3's here. But I never play my system much past the 95-98db levels. I don't want to lose my hearing.

Do you have a capacitor bank across the batteries? I have a Trends T-amp that I used to use with a 12v Optima yellow top SLA battery. If you put a 25V+ electrolytic (large) and some film caps (at least ~1 uF, more is better) in parallel between the + and - battery terminals it will make an improvement. Later I changed to a surplus oversize linear PS, you'd have a hard time telling it from the battery.

Also, there was an electrolytic PS storage cap inside my t-amp, and replacing it with a low ESR black gate (when they were available) made a big difference too. If you want best results I think a large (expensive) film cap as the last cap in the PS is probably the way to go.

I found my t-amp is more reactive than my SET amp to changes in source and cabling, but there's no amount of mods that will make it sound as good as my SET amp. I have heard class D amps that sound impressive but never with a sound I could live with long term, but I am open to the possibility... should be interesting to see how people like it.

OzarkTom · « **Reply #41 on:** 29 Jul 2012, 03:41 am »

No, I have never tried a capacitor bank. I am not a big DIY'er I am afraid. Just all thumbs.

I have a SET amp and two tripath amps here. The tipaths sound veiled compared to the SET and this TBI amp.

One note that I forgot to mention, you can get 20% more power by using two amps as mono. But that will double the price. I have never tried that, it would be interesting if the soundstage opened up even more.

DaveC113 · « **Reply #42 on:** 29 Jul 2012, 04:03 am »

Quote from: OzarkTom on 29 Jul 2012, 03:41 am

No, I have never tried a capacitor bank. I am not a big DIY'er I am afraid. Just all thumbs.

That's ok, all you do is connect the + and - leads of the caps to the respective battery terminals. Film caps have no polarity. It makes a pretty big difference, the output impedance of a battery is higher and there is more noise vs. a good linear PS, so without the cap bank you're better off with a well filtered linear PS. Those new LiFePo-whatever batteries are probably much better (and smaller) than SLA as well...

rodge827 · « **Reply #43 on:** 29 Jul 2012, 05:09 am »

Quote from: DaveC113 on 29 Jul 2012, 03:30 am

Do you have a capacitor bank across the batteries? I have a Trends T-amp that I used to use with a 12v Optima yellow top SLA battery. If you put a 25V+ electrolytic (large) and some film caps (at least ~1 uF, more is better) in parallel between the + and - battery terminals it will make an improvement.

Something like this ?

jkelly · « **Reply #44 on:** 29 Jul 2012, 01:02 pm »

Would these wiring items work with the Amazon batteries and a 24 volt xlr scooter charger?

Harness:

http://www.monsterscooterparts.com/ba24vowihaki.html

Port:

http://www.monsterscooterparts.com/xlrcooffboch.html

Jeff

OzarkTom · « **Reply #45 on:** 29 Jul 2012, 01:26 pm »

Quote from: jkelly on 29 Jul 2012, 01:02 pm

Would these wiring items work with the Amazon batteries and a 24 volt xlr scooter charger?

Harness:

http://www.monsterscooterparts.com/ba24vowihaki.html

Port:

http://www.monsterscooterparts.com/xlrcooffboch.html

Jeff

That should work fine. And they also have the 24V battery charger for $29.99.

http://www.monsterscooterparts.com/24vo40ampxlr1.html

DaveC113 · « **Reply #46 on:** 29 Jul 2012, 02:22 pm »

Quote from: rodge827 on 29 Jul 2012, 05:09 am

Something like this ?

No, mine is much dirtier....

OzarkTom · « **Reply #47 on:** 29 Jul 2012, 04:19 pm »

The tracking number shows that the TBI amp will arrive at Paul's house tomorrow.

DaveC113 · « **Reply #48 on:** 29 Jul 2012, 11:00 pm »

Check out this LiFePO4 motorcycle battery, it's more $ than SLA but can handle 5x the number of charging cycles. I didn't see internal resistance specs, but from what I've researched this kind of battery should be lower noise and resistance vs an SLA and will likely be a decent improvement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_resistance

http://www.batteryspace.com/LiFePO4-26650-Motorcycle-Battery-12V-6Ah-72Wh-140A-rate-in-Aluminum-Box.aspx

The link below has a graph of a gel cell resistance vs. state of charge, you can see it varies from 8 mOhms to 15 mOhms depending on it's charge. Li-ion is under 4 mOhm in the graph they shown of talk time on a cell... LiFePO4 should be even lower.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_does_internal_resistance_affect_performance

OzarkTom · « **Reply #49 on:** 29 Jul 2012, 11:26 pm »

Here is a 24V Lithium that I almost bought, and it includes the charger.

http://www.amazon.com/High-Power-Battery-Pack--BX2488/dp/B0064BM0Q6/ref=sr_1_14?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1343603926&sr=1-14&keywords=24v+lithium+battery

And the specs on this battery looks incredible, but it is $359.

http://www.batteriesinaflash.com/specs/LifePO4/K2B24V10EB/K2B24V10EB.pdf

DaveC113 · « **Reply #50 on:** 30 Jul 2012, 12:21 am »

Quote from: OzarkTom on 29 Jul 2012, 11:26 pm

Here is a 24V Lithium that I almost bought, and it includes the charger.

http://www.amazon.com/High-Power-Battery-Pack--BX2488/dp/B0064BM0Q6/ref=sr_1_14?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1343603926&sr=1-14&keywords=24v+lithium+battery

And the specs on this battery looks incredible, but it is $359.

http://www.batteriesinaflash.com/specs/LifePO4/K2B24V10EB/K2B24V10EB.pdf

Looks like the top one has a lot of capacity, it's a bigger battery than you need... also, it looks like it would need a voltage regulator as the voltage varies a lot between charge states. Even 2 motorcycle batteries are overkill, but you won't need to recharge as often... The battery I linked to can be charged with a SLA smart charger, which you probably already have.

The bottom battery would be great, but is also pretty big and at 25.6 V would need voltage regulation or maybe just a simple voltage divider...

mytubes211 · « **Reply #51 on:** 30 Jul 2012, 01:32 am »

If everything go as planned I have ready modified RWA Black Lightning running at 12V.

Cheers Ritchie

DaveC113 · « **Reply #52 on:** 30 Jul 2012, 01:39 am »

Quote from: mytubes211 on 30 Jul 2012, 01:32 am

If everything go as planned I have ready modified RWA Black Lightning running at 12V.

Cheers Ritchie

It would be interesting to compare an optimized battery supply like the RWA to a regular battery, I bet the RWA unit will be a significant upgrade. You could just pull your car up to the amp and get the jumper cables out...

OzarkTom · « **Reply #53 on:** 30 Jul 2012, 02:21 am »

Quote from: DaveC113 on 30 Jul 2012, 01:39 am

It would be interesting to compare an optimized battery supply like the RWA to a regular battery, I bet the RWA unit will be a significant upgrade. You could just pull your car up to the amp and get the jumper cables out...

If this amp improves with a better battery supply, look out.

wushuliu · « **Reply #54 on:** 30 Jul 2012, 02:26 am »

older review comparing w/ 2 other amps:

http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/3_mini_amps_e.html

already done i see. whoopsie.

Gopher · « **Reply #55 on:** 30 Jul 2012, 02:43 am »

Any chance there is room for one more on this tour? I am curious how this digital amp would do with my Zu Def 2 speakers which might be an ideal pairing for its power range.

OzarkTom · « **Reply #56 on:** 30 Jul 2012, 02:59 am »

I will try.

Rclark · « **Reply #57 on:** 30 Jul 2012, 03:22 am »

Pretty psyched to hear this with all the mods on it... I have my monitors and sub set up now in the living room (have ordered an Emotiva Mini-X amp to put on that setup for now, eventually it will be a surround amp, but it's an 80 watt stereo version of the XPA's). So I will have two sets of speakers, 4 and 8 ohm to try this on.

wushuliu · « **Reply #58 on:** 30 Jul 2012, 04:03 am »

Quote from: OzarkTom on 19 Jul 2012, 01:05 am

I am using a Dodd battery pack, but all it is, is 2-12v scooter batteries tied together and hooked up in series. The power cord can even be reversed in polarity and it will not hurt this amp. A 24V smart charger is used to charge the battery. I have found out the hard way, unhook the charger before you turn the amp on. The charger puts out more than 24v and will blow out the 4 amp fuse inside the amp.

This amp is almost bullet-proof. The company took a lot of strides in using the highest protection methods that they could.

On Amazon, here is the best deal on 2-12V batteries for $15.92.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007PT865A/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&smid=A24WV2YRRJEBAG

~~How many hours of play out of the SLAs before needing to charge?~~

never mind found the specs tab at the bottom of the product page.

OzarkTom · « **Reply #59 on:** 30 Jul 2012, 10:29 pm »

Quote from: wushuliu on 30 Jul 2012, 04:03 am

~~How many hours of play out of the SLAs before needing to charge?~~

never mind found the specs tab at the bottom of the product page.

The amp seems to play about 25 hours or so on a charge, it is very efficient.