TPA 3116 vs the tripaths

wushuliu said:
I had IRS based Classdaudio.com amps some years back. I liked them a lot. IIRC they were a little noisier than TPA311x but more importantly they were more sensitive to it input impedance, so presentation varied based on the pre used. The dual power supply was also more work to provide. I love that the TPAs are single polarity power only. Way easier to deal with and experiment.
Click to expand...

Yes mine are noisier than TPA but think it might be common ground in the chassis with the boards signal ground. Want to add a ground loop breaker at some point to see if it helps. I think the boards I use have lower input impedance as well.
 
I've tried 4 different power supplies.
1. an e-bay 60 volt variable regulated power supply at various voltages up to 48 volts (5amps at 60 volts and probably around 7 at 48 volts) sounded good, but the fan was really loud even when idling, and no clear way to turn it down safely.
2. an e-bay 30 volt variable regulated power supply 10 amp. really quite good, but not the ideal voltage. It's my favorite for the tpa 311x amps at 19.2 volts.
3. a laptop brick style supply 24 volt 3 amp really not that bad, but maybe a little fuzzier sounding.
4. meanwell lrs-350-48 clarity is excellent. The bass may be a bit more prominent with the e-bay variable supplies (Not sure why), but this has been overall the best in my system. It's also on sale at Parts Express
for $36.00. Has a fan, but hardly ever seems to come on. Basically, I agree with LIco.
 
i am asking something off the topic... i could not find the appropriate thread may be... does someone here has bought Chinese ES9038 pro/9028 pro DAC? Please guide me if this is a wrong post here and show me the appropriate thread to ask also share your experiences if someone already has it
 
Over on diyaudio, someone from Allo is saying that their coming TPA325x amp is already measuring much better than the TI evaluation board. They've also said they're hoping to match or exceed the Hypex Ncore 400.
I take it that most of the folk over here are, like me, more or less budget audiophiles, something that might explain why no one talks about trying Hypex or even Ice boards. Given the decline of ye olde stereo shop as well,
most of us never get a chance to hear the sort of equipment we might like to hear, but don't want to pay for. Similarly, I've never heard the upscale NAD amp built around Hypex modules. In other words, my knowledge of whatever
else is out there is seriously limited these days and if Allo meets or doesn't meet its "goal" with their project, I really wouldn't know. I also assume Audio Karma got its name at least partly because the folk who come here like things like 1970's receivers and even old Realistic speakers.

Now that the 3e audio boards appear to be back on E-bay and the new toy novelty has had a chance to wear off a little, I thought it would be a good time to share a fuller take on the 3e audio tpa 3255 amp board. I had said that there's a clear difference between this iteration and the YJ, $75 ish pre-built amp and the fx250, based on the tpa3250. I'd gone further than that and said that the 3e 3255 is also clearly better than the Allo Volt +D. That's still where I am, but I'm not telling all Volt+D owners to sell their amps while they can.

The best analogy is 4 cylinder vs. 8 cylinder car engines. If gas mileage isn't a concern, the eight cylinder vehicle has some clear advantages driving up mountain roads, accelerating quickly, and essentially staying composed in certain situations, because you can run at lower rpms. So...
1. if your speakers are mid 80's efficient or lower
2. you listen to amplified music that glories in being loud and shaking rooms
3. listen to complex music with lots of dynamic peaks (full symphony orchestra playing music post Beethoven)

There's really no contest imo, at least on my system. If music needs to be "visceral" to feel real to you, the extra wattage makes a difference that's very hard to compensate for. I'm an old guy and apologize in advance for my old guy taste in music, but I noticed clear differences on things
like Dire Straits Telegraph Road (the low pedal note in the opening needs to vibrate and bloom to sound right as do the drum hits where the beat picks up) As much as I liked my old 300B amps, drums weren't really one of the things they could do.
Joni Mitchell's Chinese Cafe also starts out with a long low note (she was married to Larry Klein at the time, so the album is sometimes sort of a love duet between her mature voice and the electric bass). Paul Simon's Numbers Get Serious has a bass drum hit where you're supposed to hear the impact and then the recovery on the skin of the drum. I'd say the same thing was true with more electronic stuff like Dead Can Dance who often have tracks that depend on a sense of weight.
On the classical side, Mahler symphonies with those brass choirs and 100+ member orchestras need wattage. In this realm, one often trades the ability to do the peaks for the more delicate stuff, but the 3e 3255 board seems perfectly capable of picking up the distinctive sound of woodwinds and that sort of thing as well.
I'm not saying that the 3e is the best I've ever heard at this stuff, more that it does it quite competently.

I suppose this is more less stating the obvious: To be into low power amps, the Volt+D's really more of a medium power amp, or single drivers on open baffles is to concede that your system's not going to do certain things as part of the price for being magical for certain other things. ( I imagine someone out there will insist otherwise and I'm happy to be corrected about this).

I've now spent a lot of time listening to the 3e 3255 on music that's less demanding of horsepower and more in the Volt+D's magic zone.

To my ear, the two sound a bit different. The +D has a generally more rounded "tubelike" sound that's very appealing. The 3e is a bit thinner which might come across to some as a little clinical, but the cleaner presentation on "attack" seems the help
the 3e deliver more of the layers within layers with orchestral music (those bits where one or more sections play very softly below the other), chamber music (getting the dynamics of each instrument across as they blend), small jazz groups (bits like the brush of the cymbals backing up a bass solo). I do think the +D's rounded sound (nothing exaggerated, just a bit more rounded and subjectively sweeter than the tpa 3255) might appeal to a lot of people, but I find it euphonic rather than accurate. How do I put this? Euphonic might be more inviting, but accurate rewards more focused listening. It may be due to what some people call "faster" in an amp, the ability to stay poised or recover quickly which arguably allows the music to maintain time or phase.
I really like the way the +D does solo piano, for example, but the 3e does a better job imo of reminding me that the instrument is a cross between a percussion and a string instrument (hammers on a harp).

While I prefer the 3e in the Volt+D's magic zone, I do get that others may disagree. That said, there's still the whole business of the music equivalent of driving up mountain roads.
 
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I really like the +D, I wonder what the final version of this will cost, what it will look like, and what power supply will do it justice. And also, if it will come with the same control and have sufficient sensitivity to not need an active preamp. The Volt +D is just marginally sensitive but sounds great direct.
 
airbus said:
Over on diyaudio, someone from Allo is saying that their coming TPA325x amp is already measuring much better than the TI evaluation board. They've also said they're hoping to match or exceed the Hypex Ncore 400.
I take it that most of the folk over here are, like me, more or less budget audiophiles, something that might explain why no one talks about trying Hypex or even Ice boards. Given the decline of ye olde stereo shop as well,
most of us never get a chance to hear the sort of equipment we might like to hear, but don't want to pay for. Similarly, I've never heard the upscale NAD amp built around Hypex modules. In other words, my knowledge of whatever
else is out there is seriously limited these days and if Allo meets or doesn't meet its "goal" with their project, I really wouldn't know. I also assume Audio Karma got its name at least partly because the folk who come here like things like 1970's receivers and even old Realistic speakers.

Now that the 3e audio boards appear to be back on E-bay and the new toy novelty has had a chance to wear off a little, I thought it would be a good time to share a fuller take on the 3e audio tpa 3255 amp board. I had said that there's a clear difference between this iteration and the YJ, $75 ish pre-built amp and the fx250, based on the tpa3250. I'd gone further than that and said that the 3e 3255 is also clearly better than the Allo Volt +D. That's still where I am, but I'm not telling all Volt+D owners to sell their amps while they can.

The best analogy is 4 cylinder vs. 8 cylinder car engines. If gas mileage isn't a concern, the eight cylinder vehicle has some clear advantages driving up mountain roads, accelerating quickly, and essentially staying composed in certain situations, because you can run at lower rpms. So...
1. if your speakers are mid 80's efficient or lower
2. you listen to amplified music that glories in being loud and shaking rooms
3. listen to complex music with lots of dynamic peaks (full symphony orchestra playing music post Beethoven)

There's really no contest imo, at least on my system. If music needs to be "visceral" to feel real to you, the extra wattage makes a difference that's very hard to compensate for. I'm an old guy and apologize in advance for my old guy taste in music, but I noticed clear differences on things
like Dire Straits Telegraph Road (the low pedal note in the opening needs to vibrate and bloom to sound right as do the drum hits where the beat picks up) As much as I liked my old 300B amps, drums weren't really one of the things they could do.
Joni Mitchell's Chinese Cafe also starts out with a long low note (she was married to Larry Klein at the time, so the album is sometimes sort of a love duet between her mature voice and the electric bass). Paul Simon's Numbers Get Serious has a bass drum hit where you're supposed to hear the impact and then the recovery on the skin of the drum. I'd say the same thing was true with more electronic stuff like Dead Can Dance who often have tracks that depend on a sense of weight.
On the classical side, Mahler symphonies with those brass choirs and 100+ member orchestras need wattage. In this realm, one often trades the ability to do the peaks for the more delicate stuff, but the 3e 3255 board seems perfectly capable of picking up the distinctive sound of woodwinds and that sort of thing as well.
I'm not saying that the 3e is the best I've ever heard at this stuff, more that it does it quite competently.

I suppose this is more less stating the obvious: To be into low power amps, the Volt+D's really more of a medium power amp, or single drivers on open baffles is to concede that your system's not going to do certain things as part of the price for being magical for certain other things. ( I imagine someone out there will insist otherwise and I'm happy to be corrected about this).

I've now spent a lot of time listening to the 3e 3255 on music that's less demanding of horsepower and more in the Volt+D's magic zone.

To my ear, the two sound a bit different. The +D has a generally more rounded "tubelike" sound that's very appealing. The 3e is a bit thinner which might come across to some as a little clinical, but the cleaner presentation on "attack" seems the help
the 3e deliver more of the layers within layers with orchestral music (those bits where one or more sections play very softly below the other), chamber music (getting the dynamics of each instrument across as they blend), small jazz groups (bits like the brush of the cymbals backing up a bass solo). I do think the +D's rounded sound (nothing exaggerated, just a bit more rounded and subjectively sweeter than the tpa 3255) might appeal to a lot of people, but I find it euphonic rather than accurate. How do I put this? Euphonic might be more inviting, but accurate rewards more focused listening. It may be due to what some people call "faster" in an amp, the ability to stay poised or recover quickly which arguably allows the music to maintain time or phase.
I really like the way the +D does solo piano, for example, but the 3e does a better job imo of reminding me that the instrument is a cross between a percussion and a string instrument (hammers on a harp).

While I prefer the 3e in the Volt+D's magic zone, I do get that others may disagree. That said, there's still the whole business of the music equivalent of driving up mountain roads.
Click to expand...
EAUMT-0260-2-A_3D_45.jpg
https://www.3e-audio.com/amplifier/tpa3255-2ch-260w/
 
airbus said:
Over on diyaudio, someone from Allo is saying that their coming TPA325x amp is already measuring much better than the TI evaluation board. They've also said they're hoping to match or exceed the Hypex Ncore 400.
I take it that most of the folk over here are, like me, more or less budget audiophiles, something that might explain why no one talks about trying Hypex or even Ice boards. Given the decline of ye olde stereo shop as well,
most of us never get a chance to hear the sort of equipment we might like to hear, but don't want to pay for. Similarly, I've never heard the upscale NAD amp built around Hypex modules. In other words, my knowledge of whatever
else is out there is seriously limited these days and if Allo meets or doesn't meet its "goal" with their project, I really wouldn't know. I also assume Audio Karma got its name at least partly because the folk who come here like things like 1970's receivers and even old Realistic speakers.

Now that the 3e audio boards appear to be back on E-bay and the new toy novelty has had a chance to wear off a little, I thought it would be a good time to share a fuller take on the 3e audio tpa 3255 amp board. I had said that there's a clear difference between this iteration and the YJ, $75 ish pre-built amp and the fx250, based on the tpa3250. I'd gone further than that and said that the 3e 3255 is also clearly better than the Allo Volt +D. That's still where I am, but I'm not telling all Volt+D owners to sell their amps while they can.

The best analogy is 4 cylinder vs. 8 cylinder car engines. If gas mileage isn't a concern, the eight cylinder vehicle has some clear advantages driving up mountain roads, accelerating quickly, and essentially staying composed in certain situations, because you can run at lower rpms. So...
1. if your speakers are mid 80's efficient or lower
2. you listen to amplified music that glories in being loud and shaking rooms
3. listen to complex music with lots of dynamic peaks (full symphony orchestra playing music post Beethoven)

There's really no contest imo, at least on my system. If music needs to be "visceral" to feel real to you, the extra wattage makes a difference that's very hard to compensate for. I'm an old guy and apologize in advance for my old guy taste in music, but I noticed clear differences on things
like Dire Straits Telegraph Road (the low pedal note in the opening needs to vibrate and bloom to sound right as do the drum hits where the beat picks up) As much as I liked my old 300B amps, drums weren't really one of the things they could do.
Joni Mitchell's Chinese Cafe also starts out with a long low note (she was married to Larry Klein at the time, so the album is sometimes sort of a love duet between her mature voice and the electric bass). Paul Simon's Numbers Get Serious has a bass drum hit where you're supposed to hear the impact and then the recovery on the skin of the drum. I'd say the same thing was true with more electronic stuff like Dead Can Dance who often have tracks that depend on a sense of weight.
On the classical side, Mahler symphonies with those brass choirs and 100+ member orchestras need wattage. In this realm, one often trades the ability to do the peaks for the more delicate stuff, but the 3e 3255 board seems perfectly capable of picking up the distinctive sound of woodwinds and that sort of thing as well.
I'm not saying that the 3e is the best I've ever heard at this stuff, more that it does it quite competently.

I suppose this is more less stating the obvious: To be into low power amps, the Volt+D's really more of a medium power amp, or single drivers on open baffles is to concede that your system's not going to do certain things as part of the price for being magical for certain other things. ( I imagine someone out there will insist otherwise and I'm happy to be corrected about this).

I've now spent a lot of time listening to the 3e 3255 on music that's less demanding of horsepower and more in the Volt+D's magic zone.

To my ear, the two sound a bit different. The +D has a generally more rounded "tubelike" sound that's very appealing. The 3e is a bit thinner which might come across to some as a little clinical, but the cleaner presentation on "attack" seems the help
the 3e deliver more of the layers within layers with orchestral music (those bits where one or more sections play very softly below the other), chamber music (getting the dynamics of each instrument across as they blend), small jazz groups (bits like the brush of the cymbals backing up a bass solo). I do think the +D's rounded sound (nothing exaggerated, just a bit more rounded and subjectively sweeter than the tpa 3255) might appeal to a lot of people, but I find it euphonic rather than accurate. How do I put this? Euphonic might be more inviting, but accurate rewards more focused listening. It may be due to what some people call "faster" in an amp, the ability to stay poised or recover quickly which arguably allows the music to maintain time or phase.
I really like the way the +D does solo piano, for example, but the 3e does a better job imo of reminding me that the instrument is a cross between a percussion and a string instrument (hammers on a harp).

While I prefer the 3e in the Volt+D's magic zone, I do get that others may disagree. That said, there's still the whole business of the music equivalent of driving up mountain roads.
Click to expand...

Good job. My SET amps can struggle with bass but sound best when the system is bi-amped with the woofers powered by a separate SS amp.
 
airbus said:
Over on diyaudio, someone from Allo is saying that their coming TPA325x amp is already measuring much better than the TI evaluation board. They've also said they're hoping to match or exceed the Hypex Ncore 400.
I take it that most of the folk over here are, like me, more or less budget audiophiles, something that might explain why no one talks about trying Hypex or even Ice boards. Given the decline of ye olde stereo shop as well,
most of us never get a chance to hear the sort of equipment we might like to hear, but don't want to pay for. Similarly, I've never heard the upscale NAD amp built around Hypex modules. In other words, my knowledge of whatever
else is out there is seriously limited these days and if Allo meets or doesn't meet its "goal" with their project, I really wouldn't know. I also assume Audio Karma got its name at least partly because the folk who come here like things like 1970's receivers and even old Realistic speakers.

Now that the 3e audio boards appear to be back on E-bay and the new toy novelty has had a chance to wear off a little, I thought it would be a good time to share a fuller take on the 3e audio tpa 3255 amp board. I had said that there's a clear difference between this iteration and the YJ, $75 ish pre-built amp and the fx250, based on the tpa3250. I'd gone further than that and said that the 3e 3255 is also clearly better than the Allo Volt +D. That's still where I am, but I'm not telling all Volt+D owners to sell their amps while they can.

The best analogy is 4 cylinder vs. 8 cylinder car engines. If gas mileage isn't a concern, the eight cylinder vehicle has some clear advantages driving up mountain roads, accelerating quickly, and essentially staying composed in certain situations, because you can run at lower rpms. So...
1. if your speakers are mid 80's efficient or lower
2. you listen to amplified music that glories in being loud and shaking rooms
3. listen to complex music with lots of dynamic peaks (full symphony orchestra playing music post Beethoven)

There's really no contest imo, at least on my system. If music needs to be "visceral" to feel real to you, the extra wattage makes a difference that's very hard to compensate for. I'm an old guy and apologize in advance for my old guy taste in music, but I noticed clear differences on things
like Dire Straits Telegraph Road (the low pedal note in the opening needs to vibrate and bloom to sound right as do the drum hits where the beat picks up) As much as I liked my old 300B amps, drums weren't really one of the things they could do.
Joni Mitchell's Chinese Cafe also starts out with a long low note (she was married to Larry Klein at the time, so the album is sometimes sort of a love duet between her mature voice and the electric bass). Paul Simon's Numbers Get Serious has a bass drum hit where you're supposed to hear the impact and then the recovery on the skin of the drum. I'd say the same thing was true with more electronic stuff like Dead Can Dance who often have tracks that depend on a sense of weight.
On the classical side, Mahler symphonies with those brass choirs and 100+ member orchestras need wattage. In this realm, one often trades the ability to do the peaks for the more delicate stuff, but the 3e 3255 board seems perfectly capable of picking up the distinctive sound of woodwinds and that sort of thing as well.
I'm not saying that the 3e is the best I've ever heard at this stuff, more that it does it quite competently.

I suppose this is more less stating the obvious: To be into low power amps, the Volt+D's really more of a medium power amp, or single drivers on open baffles is to concede that your system's not going to do certain things as part of the price for being magical for certain other things. ( I imagine someone out there will insist otherwise and I'm happy to be corrected about this).

I've now spent a lot of time listening to the 3e 3255 on music that's less demanding of horsepower and more in the Volt+D's magic zone.

To my ear, the two sound a bit different. The +D has a generally more rounded "tubelike" sound that's very appealing. The 3e is a bit thinner which might come across to some as a little clinical, but the cleaner presentation on "attack" seems the help
the 3e deliver more of the layers within layers with orchestral music (those bits where one or more sections play very softly below the other), chamber music (getting the dynamics of each instrument across as they blend), small jazz groups (bits like the brush of the cymbals backing up a bass solo). I do think the +D's rounded sound (nothing exaggerated, just a bit more rounded and subjectively sweeter than the tpa 3255) might appeal to a lot of people, but I find it euphonic rather than accurate. How do I put this? Euphonic might be more inviting, but accurate rewards more focused listening. It may be due to what some people call "faster" in an amp, the ability to stay poised or recover quickly which arguably allows the music to maintain time or phase.
I really like the way the +D does solo piano, for example, but the 3e does a better job imo of reminding me that the instrument is a cross between a percussion and a string instrument (hammers on a harp).

While I prefer the 3e in the Volt+D's magic zone, I do get that others may disagree. That said, there's still the whole business of the music equivalent of driving up mountain roads.
Click to expand...

In what ways will it/does it measure better (link please)? The TI Eval board seems pretty solid quite happy with it (quality of construction), some previous gen TPA boards I've bought failed over time.
 
@airbus

Thanks for Post # 8308 :thumbsup:

I believe I will halt with the +D... I swear I dont know the count of these small amps I own!! Been collecting them since the Sonic Impact T-Amp which I still have

The FX w/Samlex regulated PS and the Volt +D w/19v PS are soooo frigging good together it's silly -- Would gladly put them up against some very good and 10-15x more expensive Tube equipment

As for as getting "driving up mountain roads" and that visceral feeling I have other systems for that. But I understand wholly what you mean.

Thanks to every contributor in 'New Gear - Value' sub forum :beerchug:
 
As
lico said:
In what ways will it/does it measure better (link please)? The TI Eval board seems pretty solid quite happy with it (quality of construction), some previous gen TPA boards I've bought failed over time.
Click to expand...
As I mentioned earlier in order for Allo to get ncore level measurements they will likely be implementing the post filter feedback mod on the 3255. Lower distortion but with a gain hit. Your eval board should have the option of doing this as well. TI has a how to if you Google pffb and are comfortable with schematics.

Maybe we can ask 3e to implement this on their boards. It shouldn't be difficult for him to do so.
 
I believe I will halt with the +D... I swear I dont know the count of these small amps I own!! Been collecting them since the Sonic Impact T-Amp which I still have

I have too many amps too, so I definitely know what you mean. Out of curiousity have you directly compared the T-amp to the Allo?[/QUOTE]
 
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wushuliu said:
As

As I mentioned earlier in order for Allo to get ncore level measurements they will likely be implementing the post filter feedback mod on the 3255. Lower distortion but with a gain hit. Your eval board should have the option of doing this as well. TI has a how to if you Google pffb and are comfortable with schematics.

Maybe we can ask 3e to implement this on their boards. It shouldn't be difficult for him to do so.
Click to expand...

Sure.. sorry I haven't followed this thread recently and hopped back in. Am comfortable with schematics and mods, but don't have any desired to improve, the eval board sounds good enough. Was just curious.
 
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