Low Powered Amp for Speakers

[kevin gilmore]

Boy are those speakers old. I would look carefully at the surround on the woofer before spending

any money on amps to drive them.

The B&O icepower things sound even better, and you can get them in a box with a power supply up to about 300 watts.

Just wait till the batteries in the RWA amps start cracking and leaking acid jello due to their quality charging circuitry.

Anyone that owns one and doesn't change the batteries every 1.5 years is looking for trouble.

[naamanf]

The B&O icepower things sound even better, and you can get them in a box with a power supply up to about 300 watts.

Any leads on a source for the modules?

[n_maher]

Any leads on a source for the modules?

If you don't need huge power these should work.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ICE-Power-50ASX2-Power-Amplifier-Bang-Olufsen-50-ASX2-/180663729671?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1065be07

IIRC those are the same modules that Headroom uses in their desktop speaker amps and they're pretty easy to wire and make go.

[kevin gilmore]

B&O USA is about 3 miles from my house, i wandered over there one day

and they let me buy a pair as spare parts for their speakers.

[swt61]

Here's a complete ICEpower amp, if you don't want to build one...

http://www.amazon.co...r/dp/B002UD53IO

or

http://www.amazon.com/Teac-AH01-B-Amplifier-Digital-Converter/dp/B006I6FXDY

Edited February 19, 2012 by swt61

[luvdunhill]

Kevin, what is the maximum input on these modules? I have seen some that say 3V. For my use I need something that will take a decent amount of voltage. None of chip amps seem to do that.

[RudeWolf]

Boy are those speakers old. I would look carefully at the surround on the woofer before spending

any money on amps to drive them.

These are not the actual units I'd be getting, but these speakers are known to have issues. In any case a friend of mine is using such speakers and could use some spare drivers as one of his middle woofers just went belly up. I have only visually inspected the actual units in question and both furniture and drivers seem intact. But with soviet products one can never know. Even if my grandpa knew which units were manufactured at the beginning of the five year plan.

If these speakers don't end up singing in my room then I'll probably take the high efficiency full range path. I have full access to the tools needed to make the enclosures and I know a few good carpenters who would give me a hand if anything would go wrong. Just too bad these Audio Nirvanas are quite rare in EU. Maybe I'll be able to arrange something with an uncle of mine who does frequent overseas shipping.

[Currawong]

There are also the Japanese Elekit amps which range in price in the mid-hundreds. Viktor Kung in Canada translated the instructions for all of them into English and sells them with transformers for North America.

I've been pondering for a long while whether to go with active speakers or not for my living room or actually try and find a good pair of speakers and suitable amp.

[kevin gilmore]

Kevin, what is the maximum input on these modules? I have seen some that say 3V. For my use I need something that will take a decent amount of voltage. None of chip amps seem to do that.

Pretty sure that the input for maximum output is 2.8 volts peak to peak.

Will try and find the datasheet later. You can always add a 3 or 6 db

input attenuator.

[Jon L]

The new Hypex Ncore is getting a lot of buzz..

http://www.hypex.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=89

[skullguise]

I've always loved the Hypex, perhaps my favorite "digital" amp type. The Ncore are very high-powered, though, probbaly well overkill for this application.

Still.......