[Folsom]

Thanks Mike.  I guess I better order the new pot soon.

Consider a buffer in between pot and amp. That's my goal after a new PSU. Oh hell maybe before.

The amp is detail rich, but impedance mismatch appears to smear some of it. There's a sweet spot before lots of distortion at full volume, and high enough to be able to drive it well. Unfortunately NIN is a bit loud at that volume; need to listen to Trinity Sessions or something quiet

[Folsom]

Hey guys! I made a mistake, and thought C4 was connected to a different pin. Please remove it and discard, and forget. It's a "bypass" cap and it clearly causes ringing. Bypass caps are not necessary with a good power cap/s.

[Folsom]

I put a 680pf and 15pf cap across both inputs to try and reduce my RF. The results on music are very positive. Unfortunately I live in an RFI hell zone of a town so I am not fully cured of that burden.

*OMG this amp is good. It just gets better. I can't wait to feed it with a linear (a special one). My turntable and speakers aren't good enough.

[devinkato]

I'm still waiting on some fresh capacitors so I can post some pictures for everyone, for just doing the simple mods.

Thanks for all your help!  Some of us less DIY inclined individuals will really appreciate the pictures/direction.

[Folsom]

Thanks for all your help!  Some of us less DIY inclined individuals will really appreciate the pictures/direction.

Check my build guide post, it has pictures and info.

[SamA]

With a snow day in the nation's capital and time to spend with my gadgets, I hoofed it over to Radio Shack to get a power connector for my little TDA7297. The two-pack cost nearly as much as the TDA7297 shipped! But at least they had it in stock.

Wired the connector and added the Samlex 13.8 volt 7 to 10 amp power supply I normally use for my 10-meter ham rig. I powered up the unmodded chip amp and sampled Apple Lossless tracks from my iPod.

Man, this things sounds good - maybe better than any right it has. The magic for me is the soundstage, which seemed to improve with this new power setup. I'd previously used a couple 12-volt wall warts rated at less 1.5 amps or less.

I'm pretty happy with it as is and, while tempted to add better capacitors, I'm also thinking, "if it ain't broke, don't futz with it."   

[rhing]

I just installed two matched pairs of Genelex Gold Lion E88CC/6922 reissues in my Audio Research PH5 phono stage and connected it to my TDA7297 amp with the Mundorf Supreme input caps. Man, this sounds great. I'm in vinyl playback heaven. Next up is my Elna Silmic II-modded Sure Electronics TPA3110D2 Class D amp once I get my Belden 88641 shielded interconnect wire.

Follow Salis Audio's recommendation to remove that lousy polarity protection diode out of the power supply path, and replace it with a good solid core Copper wire. This really lifts the veil from the music and allows the amp to really open up dynamically. The notes have more pronounced attack and decay, and the already big soundstage gets bigger. It's really hard to believe a $5-$6 chip amp can be transformed into such a musical amp, even for high end 2-channel audio.

[Folsom]

At some point it'll be nice to make PCB's.

I think it's reasonable to get the input capacitors closer, and perhaps mount the other cap/caps on the other side, and have input/output on each side of the chip, and power from the back. Also I'd like a ground plane, that connects to circuit ground and a hole you can attach a wire with capacitor and resistor to the case with (that can safety grounded). We'll see, maybe I'll get busy later.

After reading on another forum, it appears like the chip responds well to some smaller caps close to the chip. I think I want to make a PCB with some smaller next-to-chip capacitors, then some larger reservoirs not as close. As it stands now just one single cap should be low ESR for noise concerns. But it'll probably get a bit more musical with some higher audio grade caps next to it, and then larger ones to back it up for bass etc. The other forum fellow said too small of caps faded the bass.

[gychang]

Trust me, it's nice 

You're going to be very pleased once the volume pot is out.

I just received mine, two of them.  Indeed sounds very nice, at least comparable to t-amps I had.  I wonder if the pot can be upgraded to one with on-off and volume combo...

[gychang]

If the bass can be attained, it's crazy good for price.

on mine which arrived today, bass is sufficient for my needs...  not really bass shy IMHO.

[gychang]

For those new to DIY and who want to know how to wire up one of these $6 wonders, I've attached a diagram.



I think some of the newer TDA7297 boards available through eBay now incorporate DC power connectors on the board, but if you need a suitable DC power connector, get the Switchcraft 722A DC power connector (722A) from Mouser or other online electronics parts stores.

thanks for the attached graph, it helps newbies like me, very helpful to know where to connect to.