AudioCircle
Industry Circles => Omega Speaker Systems => Topic started by: bsuhy on 6 May 2005, 03:30 am
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I think I am going to break down and buy a Sonic Impact amp. Based on what I have read I think it will be fun to try.
Are they really as good as everyone says?
Do the mods that places like Red Wine Audio do to them make that much of a difference?
Another place that has a nice looking enclosure in addition to some mods is http://mywebpages.comcast.net/ampbox/page2.html....
In any case, my current system:
ah! njoe tjoeb 4000 cd player
asl aq2004dt pre -> quicksilver mini-mites -> Super 3's
i split the signal out of the preamp to go to my sub.
i also have a luminous audio passive on the way. i have been curious about passives and thought i would give this one a try.
so, can i expect the sonic impact to blow my current setup away? its all in good fun i suppose, but if it sounds anywhere near like what i have now, for considerably less money, my wife will never let me hear the end of it!!
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I can't tell you if it is better than what you have.
It does have a bass roll-off below 170Hz.
It is better by far with a sealed 12V lead acid battery. The SI accepts a size 'N' power plug, which can be obtained at Radio Shack. The battery produces better detail and resolution, and a little more dynamics. Instruments are also better placed in a volume space.
A 5ah will provide about 20 hours of listening before it should be recharged.
Always leave the charger on it when not in use.
I bought this:
http://www.batterymart.com/battery.mv?p=SLA-12V5-F1
and this:
http://www.batterymart.com/battery.mv?p=ACC-12BC1000D-1
Make sure to also get the charger cord.
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The SI was without a doubt the best value, most shocking piece compared to higher priced gear that I have heard.
If anyone is on the fence, it's just $30-40. Buy some double A's and try it out. When I bought mine I was sold on the new technology. I went to a Clari-T after that, and I have no reservations at all. It was clearly better than the SI in every way, but I never took the time and expense to go with an SLA battery and trick out the SI.
I am going to be selling my Clari-T soon, but only to fund a move up the Red Wine lineup.
Don't worry about your wife's reservations...you can say that all the time you spend on the web looking at audio stuff let you know about this amazing new technology, and you are now ahead of the curve with an extra grand in your pocket. She'll be proud.
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Hi bsuhy,
maxwalrath is right on the money with the Clari t and the tripath. To me it's an amazing difference. I have the Si and the Powerwave from a while ago and Vinnie does some magic with the Clari t amps. I’m really into tubes and the Clari t is really changing things hear at the shop. With classical music it’s over the top good.
Thanks again,
Louis
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I can't tell you if it is better than what you have.
It does have a bass roll-off below 170Hz.
It is better by far with a sealed 12V lead acid battery. The SI accepts a size 'N' power plug, which can be obtained at Radio Shack. The battery produces better detail and resolution, and a little more dynamics. Instruments are also better placed in a volume space.
A 5ah will provide about 20 hours of listening before it should be recharged.
Always leave the charger on it when not in use.
I bought thi ...
Jeff, (or anyone) how is the battery and charger wired, and how is the battery wired to the amps power input? I assume you have to manually unhook the charger while using the amp unlike the toggle switch on the Clari-Ts?
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The SI accepts a 12V DC 'N' plug for power.
The 'N' plug has two solder points, one for positive and one for negative.
The positive one runs down then center of the plug and the negative runs along the outside of the plug.
I took two pieces of 24AWG solid copper wire and soldered them to the positive and negative points on the 'N' plug.
The battery I bought had F1 clips. I had a bunch of wire connectors laying around that were spades that slipped into sleaves. I found a sleave size that slipped over the F1 clips nicely. I crimped these sleaves onto the other end of the wire.
When I wanted to charge, I slipped the sleaves off the battery, thus disconnecting the amplifier.
The charger comes with alligator clips. I just clipped the alligator clips onto the battery's F1 clips to charge.
For long term use, I would wire up a switch to alternately connect either the amplifer to the battery or the charger to the battery.
I only had the unit about 3 weeks. I was connecting a different source and somehow managed to short something out.
Batterymart.com has good prices. You can pay at least 4 times as much for a charger at Radioshack.
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Thanks. I think I could put the amp in a different enclosure and create the switch you are referring to pretty easily. Does anyone have a link to completely remove the volume control. I would be using the T-Amp with a pre-amp at all points so I would also want to do this mod. I assume I could just hard wire it to power if I implement the switch you are talking about, when I switch power from the charger to the battery, I'd be cutting power to the amp at the same time? Most of the mod guides I've read involve replacing the pot with a nicer one. I dont need one at all.
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It is a superb buy for the money, and worth it to tinker with, or to have a spare amp lying around for emergencies.
Overall, I prefer my AKSA by quite a margin. The SI sounds thin compared to the AKSA. However, the SI does have amazing clarity.
SI's depend alot on speaker matching. The higher the efficiency, the better.
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I edited my response above. I used 24 AWG not 18 AWG.
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Here is a good site that talks about the amp and various modifications. It may be old-ish news but he says good things about it and details some modifications that look pretty easy. He also gives his impression of the new, upgraded model. Looks like a decent deal:
http://www.michael.mardis.com/sonic/start.html
Also, a picture comparing the inexpensive amp's board (the $30) with the $130 model:
http://www.si-technologies.com/info/tamp_faq.html
Close-up of the nicer board:
http://www.michael.mardis.com/sonic/start.html
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If you're able to sling a little solder, you might want to check out the Charlize amp kit. It's cheap and reportedly sounds very good. Surely better than the SI or Super T. Some say it sounds a good or better than the Clari-T.
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I don’t know much about the stock SI, but the clari t is amazing. I did have the powerwave and liked it a lot. Speaker matching is very important with these.
Vinnie’s hiwatt is getting close to being finished and is made from the ground up.
Thanks again,
Louis
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The basic T amp is so good for $25, it's ridiculous. And I've only used it with batteries and on inefficient bookshelf monitors (87dB Energy's). It isn't perfect but it has more than a hint of the 'SET magic' that 47Lab first captured (I believe) with the Gaincard a few years ago.
I'm expecting the Super T soon -Friday I hope- as well as a pair of Omega TS-3's. I'll post again with the results, in a week or two. I listen about 90% to LP's on a Rega 3 and this will serve as my main system for now.
By the way, I've had many good tube amps and preamps, SET as well as PP (yeah I've had to downsize....a lot). So, I'm not easily impressed by sand gear! 8)
happy listening to all--
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Even though I have (and love) a Bolder battery-powered T amp, and liked the Powerwave a lot when it first came out, I was a bit surprised by the results of the recent digital amp shootout.
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=26377
Wow.
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I thought the SI amp was good for the money, but not great objectively. Part of that may have been that its not powerful enough for my gigantic room. I was running into distortion and headroom issues during my tests. I might strip it out and put real connectors on it and strip the pot out of the circuit and play some more though.
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Without modification, at first you'll say "ooh, aah". After a while you'll probably say "oh, uh". They do have bass roll off issues and frankly the brightness can be overwhelming on some sources/recordings. I've found that the HF raises immediate comment from most females; maybe they really DO hear much better most guys.
With the proper caps in the proper places, and a good switching power supply or a SLA followed by ~20,000uF of capacitance, it will be much better. Just don't expect miracles out of the box, especially if your speakers sound a bit thin and/or shouty at times.
With that dose of reality, get one because they are cheap and fun... and everyone needs to tinker.
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Henry makes some good points. See...
http://www.michael.mardis.com/sonic/measure/5066-freq.html
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Henry makes some good points. See...
http://www.michael.mardis.com/sonic/measure/5066-freq.html
Henry --- thanks for the observations and Wind Chaser, thanks for the great link.
Any possibility the reviewers were mistaking the high frequency response bump/sparkle of the SI with "added detail" or something along those lines?
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That info pretty much confirms what I heard. I was using it crossed over as I think it would just be unfair to run it full range in my room and I still felt like there was a gap between the mains and my sub with an 80hz crossover. I also felt that it was a little thin sounding which may have been that bump up top or may have just been something else.
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If you go by Mardis' site (and he's played with these more than almost anyone), the Super T pretty much solves the bass issue. The bass issue is mostly down to PS inadequacy. And a bass shy amp will be thin-sounding.
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If you go by Mardis' site (and he's played with these more than almost anyone), the Super T pretty much solves the bass issue. The bass issue is mostly down to PS inadequacy. And a bass shy amp will be thin-sounding.
That's good to hear. I'm not paying $130 for an amp that is RIGHT on the cusp of being too little power for my needs though. I'd rather upgrade the cheapie one and see if I hear improvements.
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If you go by Mardis' site (and he's played with these more than almost anyone), the Super T pretty much solves the bass issue. The bass issue is mostly down to PS inadequacy. And a bass shy amp will be thin-sounding.
That's good to hear. I'm not paying $130 for an amp that is RIGHT on the cusp of being too little power for my needs though. I'd rather upgrade the cheapie one and see if I hear improvements.
I just got the SI Super T-amp (I could not resist trying it at only $130!) and just hooked it up tonight. I am still reeling my jaw from the shock of how good it is. My main amp is Monarchy Audio SM-70 Pro, a unit that costs more than 7 times as much! The sound is astonishingly good for the money and I am driving 89db two-way monitors with it and it can play very loud with full bass! The only negative I can hear is the slight nasal quality in the lower midrange which is audible only with high quality piano recordings. Otherwise, it matches or betters the Monarchy in areas like imaging and detail. Astonishing.
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Thanks for the report. I'm wondering if others could provide some more info on their setups and rooms. SQ was pretty much for the SI amp for me because I could send it into clipping before I got appreciable volume. That was with 96dB sensitive speakers. My room is 6400 cubic feet and I sit about 15-16 feet away from the speakers so I definitely need some output.
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Hi CJ Paul,
The new sig 30 Red wine is pretty powerful and amazingly refined. It should fill the room, no problem at all.
Thanks again,
Louis
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Nice review. I've been using an SI amp I modded with auricaps, quality resisters, Panasonic cap on the chip, good case with quality copper wiring, good conectors, a quality stepped attenuator and, after trying battery power, a quality SMPS power supply supplied by nuuk (see his reviews on TNT). I've been playing cd's from a $3,000 cd player through it into OB'd Visaton B200's run-in for 300 hours. My listening room is 12'x12'x12' (small!). I've been runnning this setup for a few weeks. Total cost of the SI with mods is $350. (the stepped attenuator took up $200 of this). I've also played the SI through my Quad ESL57's with new trable pannels and high end turntable in the same room.
Ok, so the SI sound for me is clear and dry, with good imaging and nice dynamics. Definately up there with new $1000-$2,000 amps of a certain variety. However, its failings in my system were also clear. It lacks majorly in organic depth, specially in the midrange, making it, as some have said, thin. This thinness, while less so than cheap and nasty amps we've all heard so often, is still very fatiguing in long term listening, because one is made aware one is listening to sounds, not organic instruments. ( I include synthesisers as organic instruments here, as anyone with a wonderful system will know). As a result, the feeling of having musicians in the room, with all their attendant emotion and PRAT, is not found at all by this little amp.
To give an idea of amps that do what the SI can't, I have 3 inexpensive amps that I plugged in. They were:
Quad 306 ($300 used) and Tube Technology valve pre ($400 used),
Sony 3200F and 2000F pre (1970's high end - $400 used)
SET monoblocks (homemade - $400 used) and Tube technology pre.
The best of these was the Sonys, followed by the SET, then the Quad. The defining characteristic for me was how real, close and emotional the musicians and their instruments were to me, and the drive and PRAT conveyed of their perfomances. In all respects these 3 amps had it, and the Quad was somewhat behind the SET and Sonys, which were rather close to each other.
I own a Taylor 314CE guitar ($1500 retail) and am just about to spend 2 weeks playing a Steinway concert grand piano. ($70,000 retail). The SI in my system couldn't tell the Steinway from a $1000 piano, or the Taylor from a cheap guitar. Both the SET's and the Sonys can do that, specially through the Quad Esl's, and with my turntable. In fact the fatigue I get from the SI amp with cd and Visatons is not far off that I get from playing my girlfreinds piano (worth $100) or a reallly cheap guitar.
Something that I have to admit bugs me about much of the audiophile community is the theory that there are different ways that music sounds, depending on the hifi system. Rubbish! Musically, a Steinway concert grand sounds different from a 6' Steinway grand, sounds different from a Steinway 5' grand, sounds different from a Kawai 5' concert grand, sounds different from my girlfreinds piano. Thats what musicians pay for, and all know! And then there's the swing, emotion,vibe and PRAT that the better musicians create - not the hifi!!! Thats what makes MUSIC! I spent 3 hours in a shop recently choosing a Fender Strat for a freind, and the assistant (a wonderful guitarist) and I both knew the best of 30 strats as soon as we heard it, as any musician would. It conveyed emotion and PRAT like none of the others. It was like it was alive in my hands, and wanted to rock! YES.
This is an honest review based on the actual sound and feel of beautiful instruments (as used on most recordings) played beautifully by real people.
I shall keep my SI til I've built a gainclone, which Nuuk says can do some of what the class t amps can't for not much dinero. Meanwhile I love the fact that this little box (42x32x62) produces the music it does, within its very clear limitations, though it is NOT cheap, compared to my other amps and what they can do in finding real music!
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Good to see a fresh perspective on this, gilbodavid.
A lot of food for thought in your post.
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When you put a suboptimal component into a high end system, the flaws will be pretty apparent. In the context of a budget system, the SI is a "great amp".
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Bit of a no-brainer.... I had a spare AC Delco car battery in the garage, and I also have a float charger for my motorcycle battery.... so.....
I've got the Super T running on 12V now, the included extra wires makes it a snap to do. First thing I notice is that the slight buzz I had is gone..I thought it was a ground hum from my phono board (diy Bugle), but I guess it was a 60Hz buzz from the SMPS on the amp! So a quieter background, good start. I'll need to listen to a bunch of reference discs, but so far I think I'm hearing tighter, cleaner bass, and more detail. What you'd expect from a ps upgrade. Some of the nuance in Tracy's voice is there again...this is still a dry system compared to the tubes and Koetsu pickup I used to run, but it's slowly improving in the liquidness/seduction area.
Anyone with $139 and an inquiring mind should check this amp out, it's a lot of fun. 8)
my system:
Nagaoka MP-11 MM ($70)
Rega Planar 3 (stock RB300)
Bugle phono on 12V Panasonic SLA's
Super T
Omega TS-3's / Dayton MkIII 10" powered sub
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Gilbodavid,
I think you described precisely what I've experienced with my modded Sonic Impact amp.
Though it sounds very clear, engaging, fast, exciting, and absolutely amazing given its price, there's a certain leaness in the sound that keeps it from being my long-term solution. I'll put the SI T-amp in my system and enjoy it for a few days, but ultimately I'll crave the more natural sound of the Charlize or Gaincard.
There are instances, however, where the modded SI really shines. For example, the same unit that sounds lean in my system sounds absolutely right in my brother's system. He's using a pair of Klipsch Heresies (94 db/w/m efficiency, I believe) and an old Adcom GFP-565 preamp with it. Both he and I were blown away by how good the combination sounded. Good enough that he's set with the system and doesn't feel the need to find anything else.
So maybe there's a special synergy happening there, or maybe it suggests that the SI really needs a high-effiency speaker to shine. Still, I consider it to be a ground-breaking amp for the performance-to-price ratio that it offers. In the right system, I believe it can be every bit as good as the most positive reviews suggest.
I have to disagree, however, with your assertion that the system does not play a role in shaping how recorded music is perceived. Just as an acoustic environment (an specific instrument in specific space) can shape the live listening experience for better or worse, a playback system is an electrical/mechanical environment that does the same for recorded music. Just as the quality of the acoustic environment (the quality of the instrument and acoustic space) will contribute to the listener's experince of a musician's live performance (cheap piano in a concrete hall vs. Steinway in Carnagie Hall, for example), so will the electrical/mechanical environment of the playback chain affect the listener's experience of the recorded performance.
For example, I've experimented for 5 years with a certain preamp that I have. With certain combinations of internal components (resistors, capacitors, potentiometers), I'm able to understand the tonal relationships and qualities of the instruments in a performance better than with others. With other components, I'm able to understand the melodic relationships within the same performance that I never realized existed before. With other components, I'm able to discern the relationship of the performer within the acoustic space and appreciate how the sound form the instruments interact with the venue. Still with other components, the reproduction of the performance has no life and holds no interest for me, even though the performance is clearly dynamic and bursting with life.
So the components and topologies within a playback system have a way of highlighting certain aspects of the recording. This can make or break the way a performance is reproduced. A given system will highlight certain aspects of the recorded performance over others, and a system that's cherished by a listener is one that gives him or her the most insight into those areas of the performance that he or she values most.
You are right, though, that the musicians, their mastery of their instruments, and their understanding and insight into the music are the heart and soul of the listening experience, but the playback chain does drastically affect the reproduction of what they have laid down on tape.
Put another way, there are many qualities in live music that are lost or altered once it's recorded and played back. The recording and playback of a performance is, at best, a partial reconstruction and interpretation of that performance. Like any interpretation, the result can be varied and can deviate from the original in many different ways - that's why we end up with so many systems that play back recorded music but sound so different.
Best,
KT
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no one has mentioned using a tube pre amp with the t-amp. This totally removes any nasally thin, harsh, and fatigueing qualities from the sound, adding depth and roundness while still maintaining the clarity, crispness and speed. I didn't like the t-amp that much overall (due to brightness) until I hooked up my Luxman LX-33 as a pre-amp. I just max the volume on the t-amp and use the volume control on the Luxman.
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no one has mentioned using a tube pre amp with the t-amp. This totally removes any nasally thin, harsh, and fatigueing qualities from the sound, adding depth and roundness while still maintaining the clarity, crispness and speed. I didn't like the t-amp that much overall (due to brightness) until I hooked up my Luxman LX-33 as a pre-amp. I just max the volume on the t-amp and use the volume control on the Luxman.
I'm assembling the parts to build an Aikido tube linestage and plan to use it as a preamp in front of my Super T.
Btw, I had the same sort of 'conversion' you describe, when I got the subwoofer. I thought the sound was pretty good before, now I think it's very good. With still more room for improvement.
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no one has mentioned using a tube pre amp with the t-amp. This totally removes any nasally thin, harsh, and fatigueing qualities from the sound, adding depth and roundness while still maintaining the clarity, crispness and speed.
That is a very good and important point! The T-Amp is very revealing of what's up stream. Tubes in front make a world of difference. You can easily spend thousands and do worse - poo poo on all the nay sayers. I mean it really has to suck when a $30 amp crushes your over priced pride and joy.
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Btw: I had an old Hafler DH101 preamp sitting around here..I listed it for sale and when it sold I plugged it in to make sure everything was still working on it. I ran it with the Super T pot wide open and it definitely added something nice, midbass sounded fuller...a richer sound although a bit rolled off at the top. Net, I think an active preamp & bypassing the T's pot (with a good preamp) is worth trying. It convinced me to build a tube preamp as my next upgrade/project.
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Do you think tube preamps "fix" T-amp problems or just mask them by perhaps being rolled off and less detailed. I know not ALL tubes are rolled off, but SOME are.
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Do you think tube preamps "fix" T-amp problems or just mask them by perhaps being rolled off and less detailed. I know not ALL tubes are rolled off, but SOME are.
A good tube in front smoothens them out and makes them much more musical. However with the original SI there is still the issue of early bass roll off and strident highs.
It should be repeated that not all Tripath based amps sound the same. The Charlize was by far my own personal favorite. If you are looking for a big bang on a small dollar, I'd say the Trends is now the best option and way to go.