[JeffB]

Hi Vinnie,

I need clarification of some things.

The Tripath website has a TK2050, but the Red Wine Audio Teac Modification page states that the Teac has a TP2050.  Is this a typo? Has the TK2050 replaced the TP2050 or is the product just not on the Tripath website.

Apparently the Tripath chip alone is not sufficient to be a useable amplifier, but a board must be designed to use it?  I assume that needing this board is the reason for modifying the Teac.  I guess I am wondering if you could directly build a board around the TK2050 chip or do you really need the starting point of a designed board.  That is designing the board is really a more difficult task than just upgrading some parts on a board?

Tripath has some sample boards for the TK2050 listed here.
http://www.tripath.com/TK2050_design_tools.htm
The Parallel Reference Board looks kind of interesting.  Is there reason to think that the Teac board would be a better starting place than the Tripath eval board?

I was thinking about using a more powerful amplifier to drive a sub-woofer.  The Parallel Reference Board is 110W mono.  Could something like that be battery powered?  Is there any kind of formula that would dictate X Tripath Watts requires N number of Y ampere batteries.  I am just wondering at what wattage battery power starts becoming difficult to deal with.

[Vinnie R.]

Hi Vinnie,

I need clarification of some things.

The Tripath website has a TK2050, but the Red Wine Audio Teac Modification page states that the Teac has a TP2050.  Is this a typo? Has the TK2050 replaced the TP2050 or is the product just not on the Tripath website.

The TK2050 is a "chip set" that consists of two chips: the TC2000 Audio Signal Processor chip and the TP2050 Power Stage chip.

Apparently the Tripath chip alone is not sufficient to be a useable amplifier, but a board must be designed to use it?  I assume that needing this board is the reason for modifying the Teac.  .

Yes, the chip needs to be connected to external components (ex. capacitors, inductors, resistors, etc).  Designing the board, having it manfactured, having the parts installed, etc is expensive unless you are dealing with large volumes.

[quote="JeffB]I was thinking about using a more powerful amplifier to drive a sub-woofer. The Parallel Reference Board is 110W mono. Could something like that be battery powered?[/quote]

Sure, it uses the same TK2050 chipset as the Teac.  Running in parallel, the power is more like 75W into 4-ohms at 0.01% THD+N, and 100W into 4-ohms at 3% THD+N.

I can modify the Teac to run in the parallel mode...you don't need to use the Eval Board (which are more expensive...).