Gary Indiana
Active Member
Here is my new Lepai Tripath amp. What makes these amps attractive is their tiny size, high efficiency, very decent sound quality, and more than affordable price.
I bought my first Lepai amp a couple of years ago on ebay for about $25 shipped from China. The one and only thing I did not like about it then was loud pop in the speakers when powering ON and OFF.
New Lepai amps are upgraded with speaker relay that delays their connection until the circuitry is stable and no DC present on the outputs. There is still a little pop when turning the amp OFF, but that should be taken care of with an upgraded, larger filtering cap.
These amps are currently offered on Amazon for $20 shipped with a 12V 2A switched power supply. There is consensus among users that the power supply should deliver 4 to 5 Amps for the Lepai to kick some diaphragm. And so a better power supply should be put on the top of the list of upgrades. I got my good used 12V 5A power supply at local Goodwill for $1.99.
Second important IMO upgrade would be replacement of the filtering capacitor for a more beefy one. Ideally the 16V cap should be 4700uF or more if dimensions allow fitting it inside the case: the more uF - the better. The cap it came with originally is a measly 2200uF. I think this causes the slight pop in speakers since it discharges too quickly, before the relay turns OFF speakers. Bigger supply cap should also help with bass.
The blue LEDs don't tickle my fancy especially, so I replaced these with a pair of warm white LEDs, which resemble the glow of a light bulb. It looks better IMO.
As I'm posting this, my $20 Lepai pumps delightful jazz from a Chesky CD in my NAD C541 to a pair of Mission 773 towers. This "audiophile" setup cost me less than $100 thanks to Craigslist and Goodwill.
And so, here it is.
Comes nicely packed in a foamy cutout with a small 12V 2A switched power supply.
That's what it looks like inside. Tidy, tidy, tidy.
The black square relay is an upgrade to older design; meant to protect speakers from loud pops.
The Tripath TA2020 chip is the heart and soul of the little amp. Thanks to its great efficiency of 80% to 90% it does not require large heatsink.
This is the underbelly of the beast. Again: a tidy PCB design.
The PCB - printed circuit board - is made of decently thick double-sided copper clad fiberglass. It doesn't get much better than that.
Here is a bird's-eye view.
This one capacitor shall be upgraded soon.
Blue LEDs inside…
…and their original blue glow around the knob outside.
Warm white LEDs replaced the blue pair.
This "upgraded" look is better, IMO.
I bought my first Lepai amp a couple of years ago on ebay for about $25 shipped from China. The one and only thing I did not like about it then was loud pop in the speakers when powering ON and OFF.
New Lepai amps are upgraded with speaker relay that delays their connection until the circuitry is stable and no DC present on the outputs. There is still a little pop when turning the amp OFF, but that should be taken care of with an upgraded, larger filtering cap.
These amps are currently offered on Amazon for $20 shipped with a 12V 2A switched power supply. There is consensus among users that the power supply should deliver 4 to 5 Amps for the Lepai to kick some diaphragm. And so a better power supply should be put on the top of the list of upgrades. I got my good used 12V 5A power supply at local Goodwill for $1.99.
Second important IMO upgrade would be replacement of the filtering capacitor for a more beefy one. Ideally the 16V cap should be 4700uF or more if dimensions allow fitting it inside the case: the more uF - the better. The cap it came with originally is a measly 2200uF. I think this causes the slight pop in speakers since it discharges too quickly, before the relay turns OFF speakers. Bigger supply cap should also help with bass.
The blue LEDs don't tickle my fancy especially, so I replaced these with a pair of warm white LEDs, which resemble the glow of a light bulb. It looks better IMO.
As I'm posting this, my $20 Lepai pumps delightful jazz from a Chesky CD in my NAD C541 to a pair of Mission 773 towers. This "audiophile" setup cost me less than $100 thanks to Craigslist and Goodwill.
And so, here it is.
Comes nicely packed in a foamy cutout with a small 12V 2A switched power supply.
That's what it looks like inside. Tidy, tidy, tidy.
The black square relay is an upgrade to older design; meant to protect speakers from loud pops.
The Tripath TA2020 chip is the heart and soul of the little amp. Thanks to its great efficiency of 80% to 90% it does not require large heatsink.
This is the underbelly of the beast. Again: a tidy PCB design.
The PCB - printed circuit board - is made of decently thick double-sided copper clad fiberglass. It doesn't get much better than that.
Here is a bird's-eye view.
This one capacitor shall be upgraded soon.
Blue LEDs inside…
…and their original blue glow around the knob outside.
Warm white LEDs replaced the blue pair.
This "upgraded" look is better, IMO.
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