Excellent video. Am a novice and this video has improved my knowledge greatly. Love the honesty right off the bat. The right amount of detail without trying to sound much more intelligent than the viewers. This is how reviews should be. Many thanks. I bought one on strength of this review.
I use this one to drive a pair of NS-10 and it's just incredible how much CLEAN power this amp can deliver for such a size and price. I run it with a 24V 5A power supply. If you hesitate to buy one, one word : GO!
John, another good video. Some reviewers sound more like a QVC commercial but your philosophy is to approach this with an open mind, give us the numbers, and allow the viewer to make up our own minds. Well done.
I run a dual bridged version of the TPA3116 d2 with dali ikon 6 floor standing speakers. They are 6 ohm. I changed the inductors to 10uH and reduced the caps to 330nF. Sounds beautiful now. Set up right, these are superb amps.
very nice review. So many people dont understand RMS power today and so many of the specs ignore it. For an amp that small 20 watts rms is huge. Especially with the low distortion level. and how you show the real specs when clipping. I am going to try my laptop power supply that specs out for 19v and try it on my suitcase speaker to see how loud it gets. I need something loud for my suitcase speaker for my car because of road noise. Also need something with large capacitors to handle an occasional punch bass. Surely wont bring it up to clipping rate very often but running maybe 10 to 15 watts. I already tried it with a 12v lithium battery and the draw shuts the battery down to its protective circuit. So if it works well with my laptop supply I may put in a small pigtail to wire it to my battery with 12 gauge wire.
I just ran across Weiliang/Breeze Audio last night (while perusing through AliExpress). Never heard of them before. The unit that really caught my eye is their DP1 amp; 50Wx2 plus 100W sub, bass and treble controls, bass volume (separate from main volume) AND bass frequency adjustment (right on the front of the unit!). I wish they would give a little better specs (like THD and RMS figures) on things like this. Just before I shut down for the night, I stumbled across their 6-channel surround sound system! 50Wx5 plus 100W sub. I'd like to see reviews on one or both of THESE units!BTW; nice review vid on this little unit! Thumbs up!!!
I almost wish I had found these a couple of days ago. As it is, tomorrow I should be getting the SMSL AD18 that I ordered on Thursday. It's gonna power the new sound system for my computer. That 5.1 surround sound system sure would have spiced things up in here (for less than half the price of the AD18!). C`est la vie!
The 2.1 board has one TPA3116 BTL for stereo and and TPA3116 in PBTL mode for the sub. I tested one and didn't like the filter circuit since it had some issues with bass gain.
I bought two of those about a year and a half ago they were normally on sale between $19 and $24 I got lucky and found one one website selling them for $17 that’s why I bought two. I got curious and took one apart and modified it with some different capacitors resistor values and my custom built five amp linear power supply. Out of all the Chinese cheap plasty amps I got to say bang for the buck this is the best one I’ve ever tested the stock one is hooked up to my TV and two speakers the one I modified is in my workshop blasting away daily for the last year and a half no problems.
I just bought one of these from Ebay.. I never held out much hope that it would be any good.. Oh, how I was surprised at the sound quality.. Amazing little amps for the very low price.. :-)
Merci pour le partage. J'ai acheté cet ampli grace à votre test et j'en suis très satisfait. ses performances ainsi que sont rapport qualité-prix sont excellents.
@JohnAudioTech Thanks for the informative and insightful review. I bought a couple on Amazon a while back. I found there's plenty room in the case to install a small brushless fan over the heat sink, drilling a few holes down either side of the case for air flow, which increases efficiency by actively dissipating allot of that excess heat. I applied some hot glue over the coils reducing the risk of mechanical failure too. They're great little amps at £40ish on Scamazon, four years on, they're quite a few alternative types of similar build quality, performance and quite a few really crap ones people would do good to avoid like a dose of the clap! You do get what you pay for. 😉
Hi, thank you for this video. I have a question regarding the frequency response test. When you used the 8 ohm load, the test looked pretty nice. Just one thing came to my mind...you used resistive load for the testing, right? Would the response be different if you used actual speaker, which (I think...) acts more like an inductive load?
Thanks for the review John. I have been looking for a small amp to use with a computer. Will look for a laptop supply, should work great for what I need.
A'h the Strawbs, used to reherse in the back room of the White Bear pub in my old home town of Hounslow, a suburb west of London before they were famous. Great band they were very good live.
Great video, very helpful. I see the reason for that standby power swich, the caps are remaining charged and cones dont pop when powering on. This is serious problem with all this boards without enclosure. No problem with long throw drivers, but some expensive full range speakers can be easly demaged.
The idle current shown in the video is the same as idle current listed on the TPA3116 datasheet when the amp is on. If it is shut off - "power" switch turned off - the amp should go into shutdown in which case the current draw is 50uA. Still might drain a battery given enough time, but at less than 100th the rate mentioned in the video.
Great review my bro 👈🎧 But now after watching your video, im feelin confuse :-s which prefer, aiyima a07, fosi audio bt20a or breeze audio ? Can you recommend...
Yo adquirí ese modelo y, mi primera impresión fue muy grata; primeramente porque el diseño es mejor de lo que esperaba, su estética, si bien es sobria, se ve hermoso. En cuanto a su desempeño, puedo decir que me sorprendió su potencia y buen desempeño; obviamente, no podemos exigir que se encuentre a la altura de un amplificador de gama alta pero, no le pide nada a muchos amplificadores de su gama, suena bastante fuerte, aún en bocinas grandes, su sonido es cálido, los agudos no predominan y, los graves se hacen presentes sutilmente, sin siquiera requerir ecualización cuando, por ejemplo, se escucha youtube desde nuestros celulares o tabletas. Cabe aclarar que este amplificador no posee ecualización integrada, por lo que debemos tomar en cuenta a la hora de adquirirlo. Así también, al comprarlo, en mi caso, desde la app Aliexpress, se ofrece en dos versiones, con gabinete o sólo la tablilla de circuitos ya armada con los componentes, ésta última versión es más barata y ofrece la posibilidad de crear nuestro propio gabinete. El costo de este amplificador, en pesos mexicanos fue alrededor de $500 a 600 pesos, en 2017. Posteriormente, adquirí la segunda versión de dicho ampli, el cual posee conexión Bluetooth, adicional de las conexiones originales RCA. Voy a cumplir dos años con mi primer ampli y un año y medio con el segundo. Lo recomiendo para crear un pequeño sistema de sonido con algún par de altavoces que nos sobren y conectar nuestros smartphones o tabletas, recomiendo la versión Bluetooth para evitar tanto cableado.
Do you recall what the spec for the banana jacks is - none of mine seen to fit and the connectors seem to be larger than my standard stereo equipment which is odd for a mini amp.
Hi John what would you recommend for connecting in-wall speakers for two computers. I don't need an amp with Bluetooth but it would be nice. I don't know if it's better to have an amp with multiple inputs or AB switch? I am definitely on a budget and not an audiophile by any means, good sound is good enough for me. Thank you in advance!
Love your video's John, you don't miss much. There are TPA3116D2 amps going for £3.50 (around $4.75). Not in a fancy case but from one RU-vid video a very nice little amp once the gain was sorted. You can get a 2 x 100W (?) for £5 but it's going to be fun fixing the gain. Most of the TDA7498 amps have thumb switches to reduce the gain. Pretty well all these D-Class amps have undersized heat sinks but running one in a case with no vents seems silly.
Have one of those shitty 5 bucks classD TPA amps from ebay (too lazy to check the IC model), I've ran 4ohm speakers from it, currently do 8ohm speakers, apart from the serious pop when I turn it on and off, some strange noises one or two minutes after powering it on, on one of the channels and the retarded choice of using a molex connector for audio input that has poor contact and wants to kill my speakers (sorry for rant), I've actually never got the heatsink to even be near hot, that thing barely gets lukewarm, I need to touch the heatsink with the back of my fingers and close my eyes to be able to feel a tiny bit of heat (and I've got my neighbor 3 floors above complain about music being too loud), though I haven't run a subwoofer from it though, only somewhat efficient speakers. Anyway, I'm considering getting another amp one with a power/mute switch because of that pop when turning it on/off because I'm afraid it may slowly kill the tweeters. Also I seem to be paranoid about the amp passing ultrasonic signals to the speakers, though that should be unlikely due to filtering. Also that thing has 0mV DC offset on one channel and 10mV on another, I think that may mean some cap is faulty.
In this Chip's datasheet, they wrote you can get 100 watts into 2 ohms. But I think it will have a lot of THD. I have 2 of this amp, but my speakers are 8 ohms. I didint measure the output in 2 ohms.
Yes, you should definitely use some other amp for tweeters or heavy filtering or some delayed relay protection. There's a mute feature in TPA3116 but not all the chinese crap boards expose it.
Well, using other amp for tweeters can't be done since they aren't bi-wired and I that box doesn't seem to have any screws, I think it's glued on so I can't add another wire connection without risking not being able to close the box again, besides the wood is degraded. I think I'm going to bet on trying to fix my friend's vintage Marantz and getting a real and cool looking amp that way :D
The speakers might have first or second order crossovers, but I'm not sure if that is enough to avoid any damage. I'd recommend the TDA7492(E) or TDA7498(E) based boards if you want a similar kind of class D amp. I like TPA3116 quite a lot, but wouldn't use it for tweeters.
At 9:28 you have the heat sink hot, don't you think that would shorten the life of those 5 caps crammed up to it? Or do you think the hot situation only happens in the stress test and normal music would not get them hot?
Great video John, if you've got the time, it'll interesting to see if you could modify this unit. Focusing on the L, C and thermals to achieve better HF and 4 Ohm performance. Perhaps adding a power relay for battery use and proper LED indication? Might need new box though? A home spun power supply might also be of interest? You could call it a JAT (Breeze) 50+50 Watt Power Amp :)
AS you say, the HF response of D-class chips varies with the load/impedance they're driving, so the slight droop with a nominal 4ohm speaker and flatter response into 8ohms ones is to be expected. 6 ohms seems to be a common quoted figure for speakers these days, that may be what they assume many of these amps will be paired with. That said, those are _nominal_ figures, and impedance usually swings considerably over the bottom few 100 Hz (and rises steadily over c. 1KHz). I wouldn't be surprised to see parts of the curve for a 4 ohm speaker dropping to a couple of ohms in places, hence all that current and heat. What's more this is usually completely wasted, some of it may well be subsonic and completely inaudible through bookshelf and even medium size stand-mounts - I'd be inclined to roll off the signal below c. 50Hz with a high-pass filter (a DSP is easy, but more problematic if you're not using a PC-based player. For vinyl you'd want to use a phono stage with a subsonic 'rumble' or warp' filter.
Excellent stuff. Please keep it up. Lots of thoughts. Are those filter caps in your mind, or are they reservoir caps? Can you probe your power on the way in and again at the amp IC to get some idea what’s going on? It matters a lot. Is the IC hogging current at certain frequencies? Can you see anything like an inverse frequency relationship before and after the cap array? The basic thing I’m looking for is whether or not the bulk capacitance was selected to match the design characteristics of the IC. I have a running debate with the RU-vid audiophool community regarding the use of power supply side caps. On the output side the frequency dependance can be calculated and tested. On the PSU side, other than on tube gear, things are very, very strange. Is more always better? Do the LCR (don’t forget R) properties on the front side make a difference? Does it depend on the exact specifications of the solid state circuit? I cut tube gear out for many reasons. The most important is that VT tech can only do so much. Absent some inductive magic (see El Paso Tube Amp guy) you will be bathing in line frequency anyway.
I'd think they were reservoir caps. IF fed from an analog (non-switching) supply it's possible they would also serve some filtering, but switching supplies yield no 120hz component to be filtered. Instead they generate 20-40khz noise which ideally require a low pass filter to remove, preferably with a series choke. I don't think the 4700 mfd cap alone would serve that. Better to have a small value cap as a high freq bypass I think. Might make an interesting experiement for someone familiar with Spice circuit simulations.
I would take that heatsink off and apply a large block or a large heatsink that would touch the case to dissipate the heat better or maybe cut a couple holes and install a fan or even both.
I have used a heat pipe CPU cooler without the fan. Of course the case doesn't fit. The base of the heatsink is large, so there has to be enough clear real estate around the chip. The biggest challenge was fabricating a bracket to hold the heatsink in place (no pressure on the board).
It would definitely make sense to use the case as a heatsink. Looks like the top half can be removed by itself, so a block of aluminium could be fashioned with a bit of trial-and-error. Dissipating a lot of the chip's heat directly to the outside would keep temperatures inside the case down and keep the filter coils a bit cooler too. I've been thinking of doing exactly this with a pair of SMSL TPA3118's, although they're the 'slug down' version (only have the PCB to sink to) and and it wouldn't be as effective as with the 3116.
Thanks for this video. I am running their 100w x 2 (4.2 Bluetooth) amplifier with two of those TPA3116 chipsets inside. I am running from a 12v battery to a DC-to-DC step up booster module set for 24v into the amplifier. Is this the best voltage to run these amplifiers at? Would adjusting the voltage UP increase power output? Not that I need the full 100w + 100w, just curious what is best for cleanest and best for dynamic headroom. My speaker loads are 4 ohms per channel. Thanks...I did a vid on my RU-vid channel if you want to see
Depends what kind of music you play through them. Most modern releases are compressed to buggery (loudness war) and don't need any real headroom for dynamic peaks (they don't have any), even when they're played loud, which is why people are often happy with relatively low-powered amps. Older, non-molested recordings/masters (i.e. pre late-90's CD's and vinyl) are another matter - they often need those extra volts when played at similar overall SPL's, particularly for percussion/drums.
Hey John. I've a bit of confusion. The mono version of tpa3116 you tested delivered 50w into 4ohms mono. However, the same chip is used in this one. And it's 50w into TWO channels. Can you tell me why is that? Love from Pakistan!
@@abdadkhbqefkehfkf The chip can handle it, but the heatsink on the board is a little small. Perhaps it would work okay at 2 ohms when keeping the supply voltage under 18.
John brother i want your help to find answer of a question . If i connect a potentiometer to an amp to adjust the volume will it affect the wattage output and sound quality? Please tell me.
A potentiometer can only lower the volume, and then the wattage output also goes down (think about it). As for sound quality, there is a situation where the potentiometer will cause a change to the frequency response. Beyond the scope of RU-vid comments to explain why, plus the effect will be different on different amps anyway.
I am running 2 amps,a fosi audio for my bass. The bass and treble change my low and mid bass timbre. For my tweeters the breeze audio ( no tone controls, same amp). What do you think of throwing a car subwoofer capacitor in line? Once charged this should offer the amps all the current they would want. An easy upgrade to the 24v power supply, with less than decent ampere ratings. Could you do this at 24v? would you need 2 caps in line?? Is it worth it???
@@johncoops6897 You right, I went a whole different direction. I am now running a powered sub(David 300 with an Infinity replacement woofer) with the speaker ouputs going into it. I have also swapped the power amps around to give tone control to the tweets. For such small stuff, it rocks out.
This review lacks of a power on/off test. In my experience with the TPA3118/3116, it oscillates according to the input resistance value (the volume potentiometer’s setting) on power on. The only way to solve this issue is a logic/analogic circuit, to control the MUTE and SDZ (aka Disable) inputs during switching on and off, which I don't see here.
I purchaded this amp a while ago. I noticed a roll off at lower frequencys. Didn’t measered it though. Could it be the output impedence of the source combined with the position of the potentiometer?
LM1875 based amplifiers are quiet and sound good. The ones that come cased tend to be more costly. I really haven't tested any class D amps that are quiet yet.
i got a lepai lp2020+ and i accidentally pluged in a 27 v dc to it , do you think its worth repairing? and which part will get burn if i over volt the amp? thank you
My opinion is they are so cheap it’s probably not worth repairing. But take the case apart and have a look inside. If you are lucky it may have a replaceable internal fuse but probably not. You will probably see something damaged when you take it apart especially if it smoked.
4:57 - Those are NOT SANYO caps, they are fakes. Sanyo have a K shape vent, never an X. See hobbyaudios.blogspot.com/2011/04/identify-good-original-capacitors.html Yeah, I know it's an old video, just adding this post for future reference.
Hello, John. Happy Sabbath to you, brother.. May The LORD bless you richly. I am a newcomer to your channel and an instant aficionado. I am wondering, would it be safe to bridge this amp for an 8 ohm speaker with an 18v input, and would it deliver a solid 50 watts under these conditions. Thank you for your contribution to the youtube universe.
never have i seen an amp or speakers rated at that ohm, wtf are you using? the higher the ohms the lower the stress on the amp, I don't see why it wouldn't work, your speakers probably would blow first
@@eksine in planning to use 4 speakers in series, two for channel. 1 pair of speakers is 8 ohm, the other one is 6 ohm and I'm planning to mix the two types for each channel, so I get 14 ohm load per channel
Is there any good mods available for this board? I want as little hiss as possible. Speakers I have are fairly sensitive and it gets irritating at times. Thanks to anyone who has some info!
I have this amp and i have got 2ohm speakers jbl gto 937 to pair with this amp... is it ok to run it at 15v? Its the lower voltage on the power adapter i have. Thank you
@@JohnAudioTech Already tested it and it was ok, didnt run them yet for many time but its working fine, i think these speakers are almost 3ohm, they state that they can be used in 4ohm head unit in the box, but they are rated as 2ohm. Thank you
@@RuiPintoMusic - so you ask a question, then act the expert and ignore the advice. You are an idiot. BTW - the amp will overheat on 2 ohm loads. It will overheat on 3 ohm loads too.
What about speaker protection in this little amps, i know that the chip has build in protection but i don't see that even over temperature protection works
Is there any chance for you to do a video where you add speaker protection circuit in this amp. I think that a lot of people would be interested in that.
Thank you, thank you, John! Keep in mind that some people, like me, may want to use the amp as a "varmint calling amplifier" out in the field with a 4-8 ohm weatherproof speaker. Michael - wb6csh
Any adapter that provides the amount of volts and amps that the unit requires, and is tested and CERTIFIED for electrical safety and EMC (interference) in your country. Hint: don't but from Ebay or AliExpress.
JohnAudioTech Hi i want ask i have this amplifier i want power supply 24v 4a 12v 1A it a safe to amplifiers ? im case made to cooling better and want vu meter.
@@qzf809 The amplifier will draw only the amperage it needs, so you could have 24v and 100 amps. It won't give you any additional power. If you run the amp at 24v with 4 ohm speakers, beware that it will run hot and have a reduced life if you play it at a high volume.
Well, TPA3116 has both BTL and mono PBTL modes. Not sure if this amp can run in PBTL mode though. The spec sheet section 7.4.1 describes this. You can get a lot more than 50W per channel in PBTL mode.
May not be as big a problem as you think. My experience has been that heat sinks that get "blazing hot" with sine wave testing only run lukewarm with music or speech, even if played very loud. I seriously doubt that the heat generated would make the lifespan of the capacitors unacceptably short.
A little addendum to my previous comment. The majority of the heat that affects electrolytic capacitors does not come from the outside, it is actually generated internally by ripple current flowing through the ESR of the capacitor. This is why ESR testing is important, a high ESR usually means that a capacitor will cook itself to death in short order.
The main problem with these small amps isn't the placement of caps, it's the case and heatsink. Since the heatsink isn't exposed outside the aluminium case, all heat will build up and warm up the air inside, then radiate out via the case. It doesn't really matter how you locate the capacitors since they get hot anyways. Then again, this amp will produce only around 5W (/sqrt(2) since the output power is not RMS) of heat with max load. To stay
@@davekazoroski6548 Wrong, these d class are supplied with constant voltage 12-24v dc power adapters, not from ac source directly through diode bridge. Only ripple is from fast current changes on a load.
Oooooh, Banggood! If it no work you bang it. Then it work good. These Chinese companies use your good rep to sell their junk crap, not a good deal for you! I'll bet they didn't spend as much time designing this as you did reviewing it.
Another shitty review... why do people bother playing music samples through Utube’s compressed lossy algorithms? What do you think people could possibly evaluate from these samples? Plus, I own four Chinese audio products and hear no”hiss” from any of them. Not sure what you’re implying from this review... please elaborate.
