T Amp

[Geoff.R.G]

I'm sorely tempted... VALVE BUFFER KIT

I mean, what could go wrong?

[_D_S_J_R_]

I have here a Musical Fidelity X10-D valve buffer box and with a home made large (around 30VA which is large for the unit it's used with) 12V AC transformer as suggested by Rock-Grotto some years back. It was originally sold with some bullshit (I now realise) about high output impedances not matching low input ones. This reasoning is ok in theory, but in practise largely or totally irrelevant to be honest in these days of solid state. What the X10-D actually did was to add a warm halo together with some 'punch' (compression?) to the sound of a CD player (typically) fed through it and at the time, the rather sharp and gritty sound of a CD63 KI Signature player was mellowed and beefed up very well when played through the X10-D (using the X10 DAC instead, was far better again, but I digress). I did the full Rock-Grotto upgrade to this device some time ago and the sound was significantly improved to the point that inserting this box now makes very little difference to the sound of the source feeding it, so why bother using it? I may try it on the slightly soft toned Quad FM3 I use in the workroom, but I doubt it'll make things 'better.'

Here's the board before it was done -



And after -

[slinger]

Well, the kit's ordered and I've grabbed a 12v AC/AC 1667ma wall wart type thing to power it. Instructions said "above 0.8A" so I figured doubling that would be a decent start point. I must admit I've always wanted to have a listen to an X10-D but it's always been far too much cash just to do that, so I thought this might be fun to try instead. I'm guessing that, despite the blurb, my Chinese buffer kit is "Bass (sic) on Musical Fidelity X10-D" about like you'd describe a camel being as based on a horse though.

Depending how it sounds I'll think about upgrading the caps, or "rolling the tubes" which is the correct terminology I believe.

[_D_S_J_R_]

I did both, with valves and full kit as supplied by Rock Grotto. Both made a similar difference and it was additive...

[slinger]

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Hi there,

Glad to contact you here.

I'm so sorry that I have to inform you that we cannot ship out this item from warehouse now. We found that the whole brunch of items get problems when we checked them again before ship them out.
As a responsible seller, we never ship out the defective items to our customer.

What's worse, we have been informed that the item is under upgrades and we have no idea when would it done.
Regarding this, may I suggest that we make a full refund to you so that you could buy it locally?
Do you agree with that?

Or you could feel free to search the familiar item in our store to see if you want to exchange into.

Wait for your reply here.^^

Best regards,
Yako

There's f*ck all wrong with the current version, they haven't removed their advert, and my "suspicion meter" needle is pointing OUT OF STOCK, NEXT LOT MORE EXPENSIVE FOR US TO BUY IN. Give it a week and they'll put a tenner on the price and be selling exactly the same model for the increased price.

Also, they were closed until today for Chinese New Year...this company who quote "UK Stock" and give the item location as "Portsmouth, United Kingdom" but on further investigation is based in bleedin' China. I bought from them because they gave the impression that they were a British concern. At least I know now why they were offering the best deal on the product from the UK - because it f*cking wasn't from the UK! .

So, everything is on its way to me but I haven't got an amp.



Rant over; back to ebay.

[_D_S_J_R_]

Please check - I was given to understand the T-2020 chip was long obsolete and amps being made were from old stock. Maybe if this is true it doesn't matter if thousands of these chips are stockpiled somewhere.

[slinger]

Spot on Dave. A.f.a.i.k. production of the Tripath chips (Tripath being a trade name) ceased when the company went bankrupt and Cirrus Logic (who also own Wolfson) bought up all of the stock. That was in 2007, so how they're being distributed now, if they still are, I do not know. Obviously there can only be a finite number of chips, but what that number is I don't know either. Actually. I think this post proves I don't know very much at all, as if that needed proving.

Anyway, I've just bought a used TP22 that's still in the original box etc. so hopefully that will be OK.
I've also picked up a cheap "Little Bear" valve phono amp to compound my sins. I'll see how it sounds against the Graham Slee Novo.

[slinger]

I've just put the Monster Z Series Z2R cables into what I'll now call my "third system" and I'm very pleased with the upgrade from a pair of generic cheapo cables I bought just so I could try the amp out and to see if it was worth keeping. Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic sounded pretty good to my ears as does the gorgeous "Mount The Air" by The Unthanks now. I'm surprised at the amount of warmth that the sound has. Not overly so, but more than I thought there might be with a T-Amp. There are no grating trebles either. As with most of these amps, so I'm lead to believe, there's not an overabundance of bass but what there is is handled pretty well. I'll call it "restrained" rather than lacking. The only problem at the moment is that the speaker cables a LOT heavier than the amp, which keeps wandering off on it's own. I may have to invest in some Blu-Tack for my next system upgrade. Actually I'll probably try an upgrade to the interconnects next. Nothing special, just a bit better than the generic-you-could-thread-a-needle-with-these efforts I had knocking around.

So, currently it's...

AMP SMSL SA-36A Pro
SPEAKERS - KEF Q15
SPEAKER CABLES - Monster Z2R
DAC - Incredibly cheap thing recommended by The Doc, Dave, and others.
INTERCONNECTS - Generic optical and RCA
MUSIC SOURCE - Computer/JRiver or Computer/Foobar2000

Total cost = less than £110.00, and the speaker cable set me back over half of it with plugs. To be fair I suppose you should add £50 or £60 to that for a second-hand pair of Q15s which I would have had to pay if I didn't already have them going spare (One less thing to put on eBay.) so make it a round £170 the lot. For the SQ I've got I'd say that was pretty damn good. I'm a happy bunny, and I've still got he valve buffer kit to come. That'll be a whole £10.75 to add to the total.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

So does the T in T Amp stand for terrible.

[slinger]

So does the T in T Amp stand for terrible.

Did you not read what I wrote? Do I make it sound Terrible? If I didn't know it stood for Tripath I'd hazard a guess that it stood for Terribly-good-despite-the-slagging-it-gets.