Multiple T-Amps w/ mAudio 410 & JRMC

[jeffx]

Has anyone tried this setup for 5 zone audio using several Sonic Impact t-amp for amplifiers?

JRMC w/ NetRemote
m-Audio Delta 410
t-amp for each zone

I was looking for a hifi, low cost, compact and low power-consuming setup and think using several of these mini-amps meet all my requirements.

The audiofile sites rave about them. I bought 3 from buy.com for under $60 ($19 each).

http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/t-amp_e.html

Has anyone else used these? I'll post my results as I get everything set up, using the t-amps for the living room in-wall BIC m-80 speakers and the kitchen and bathroom ceiling speakers. The family room and my office have their own amps already.

 

[smee]

I'll be interested to see what your conclusions are. I've got two of those amps sitting here, waiting for me to do something with them.

My plan was to use them to modify how my audio is zoned (and amplified) now. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[TonyNo]

I'll be watching the also.

I bought a "cheap" $150 Sony receiver to power my kitchen and basement speakers a while ago.

 

[jrfuda]

I purchased two of those about a year ago with the intent of using them to power Bass Shakers. They barely made them whimper. The amps don't really put out the power they claim. I think you may find some discussion over at the AVS forums about how T-class amps are not all that great.

I think they'd be good for setting up some zoned all-house announcements, but I think you'll be disappointed if you use them for music distro, unless you plan on playing the music at very low volumes.

I ended up returning them (I got them through Amazon/target online) and used the money + a little more to buy a nice 100 watt plate amp from parts express and wired my bass shakers in a parallel/series combo so that each of the for shakers received 25 watts of power. They work great now, and I had to turn the gain on the amp down considerably in order to not make the shakers overpower everything.

Again, I did not try the T amp with actual speakers, just the shakers, so my opinion may not be relevant.

EDIT: Another thing. You need apretty hefty 12V power supply to power these unless you want to constantly replace batteries. I used thes power suppies to power them for the limited time I had them: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cf...tnumber=120-536 They are very good power supplies, and although I returned the amps, I kept the power supplies (one of which is now employed powering fans that cool my equipment rack).

 

[smee]

I'm not surprised that the T-amps didn't do a very good job with the bass shakers. Every glowing review that I've read talks about them working great with very efficient (which usually means expensive) speakers.

My impression is that it's probably a try-it-and-see (hear?) situation - everyone needs to decide for themselves based on their own setup.

My real reason for this post is to second the recommendation for the power supply. I also like these for general use. I haven't tried one with the T-amp yet - since I haven't tried the T-amp yet - but I've used them for numerous other things. I don't know how clean their power is, so that may affect the performance of the amplifier.

 

[jeffx]

Thanks for the recommendations on the power supplies. That brings up a few other questions:

If I use a 12-13 Volt power supply that can put out 4 amps, can I connect them all to one power supply?

Where is the best place to buy speaker wire?

Could I use car amplifiers instead of the t-subs?

 

[jrfuda]

Jeff, you can use the 4A powersupply if you wire it in parallel. Here's an example of 2 ways to do it, and one way not to do it:

You're also going to need a connector kit in order to connect a powersupply to the amps. I used this one when I tried the amps out: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.c...tnumber=120-537
It's a very easy to use kit, defineately worth $4.

 

[jrfuda]

You can use any old speaker wire. Just get the cheapest stuff you can find. 16-18 guage would probably work with those amps (use the 16 for realy long runs).

It shouldn't be a problem using car amps, but their power requirements may be even higher.

 

[jeffx]

Ordered the 13 VDC 3 Amp power supply ($20), jacks ($12), 500' 16-2 in-wall speaker wire ($51) and in-ceiling speakers for the kitchen ($35) and bathroom ($27)--already purchased BIC M-80 speakers for the living room ($90 from smarthome.com).

 

[jrfuda]

Jeff, how many 3A power supplies did you get? If you're going to run three, you need 2A each, or are you going to use the 4A supply you already have for two of them, and the 3A for the third? (what's funny, though, is the amp is spec'd to require 2A, but the power supply that the manufactureer sells is only 1.5A)

I hope the sound is to your satisfaction. Either way, you'll need to write us a "real world" review of the amps, and a tutorial on how you did everything.

Here's another thought... If you used three seperate power supplies, you could connect each to an appliance module so that they'd only be on when you had their zone on... Would save you a little electricity and, perhaps, prolong the life of the amps (although it might make a popping sound when you power them up).

 

[jeffx]

Great idea with the power supplies and power modules (why didn't I think of that?)--for some reason I was initially thinking that each t-amp only needed 1 amp, not 2...I better call and change my order!

 

[GadgetBoy]

So what was the final outcome?

 

[jwilson56]

Well I think I will stick with my Technics 200 watt RMS receivers I bougt used off Ebay at an average price of $50 (there are always lots of these receivers there which cost about $100 new) . Nothing compares to 1000+ watts of power for 5 zones to drive your audiophile speakers around the house. The added benifit is that you can also use each receivers IR input selection to switch between music sources. You also get the benifit of having a tuner for each zone. So using JRMC you can listen to a seperate CD in each zone as well as a seperate station!

John

 

[jeffx]

Well, I finally got back to work on this. I gave up on buy.com ever delivering my t-amps, so I cancelled that order and ordered from another site.

I am definitely impressed with the sound put out by the tiny little t-amp (using a 2 amp 12v regulated power supply). From what I have read elsewhere, they will only sound better after broken in (50-100 hours of use).

I am having some issues with J-River media player, so I did some Googling and stumbled upon the FREE Xlobby2 program, which has a great touchscreen and POCKET PC interface. It handles multi-zone audio using multiple instances of winamp). Xlobby2 also has interfaces built in for x-10, video cams, weather, etc.

So far so good...I'll be running cable to my family room amp and installing the bathroom speaker (single "stereo" speaker with right and left tweeters and right and left inputs) next.

 

[bfisher]

Interesting you've had problems with JRiver... I've had no problems at all - very happy. What kinds of problems? Did you get the Delta 410 working OK?