Justin & Jerry's Hifi Blog

[Ali Tait]

Thanks Ali. Where's the cheapest place to get these?

.... although I have to say that it would have to go some to better my current sound!

Hi Jerry,
See here-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HLLY-TAMP-90-9...#ht_9242wt_762

A great little amp,even better driven with a good pre.

[Ali Tait]

Hamish has one I sold to him,and he reckoned it was much better than the Bantam he had,which is a generally highly-regarded UK tuned tripath amp.

[twelvebears]

I would ask what the chances are of you still having the Wadia by the time Scalford Hall rolls round, but I don't think I'll hold my breath...

[jandl100]

I would ask what the chances are of you still having the Wadia by the time Scalford Hall rolls round, but I don't think I'll hold my breath...

Yep, it would be a great addition to our Scalford system, wouldn't it!

I'll try my best - but ye Gods, man, it's over 5 months away ....

[jandl100]

Hi Jerry,
See here-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HLLY-TAMP-90-9...#ht_9242wt_762

A great little amp,even better driven with a good pre.

Hmmm ..... .... I should borrow twelvebears' avatar - I can't decide what to do!

a) get a HLLY 90 amp
or
b) get another 2020 and bi-amp

I suspect I'll go for the latter and leave the HLLY 90 on my Want List, it seems a more natural progression. It really is sounding fab!

Have you tried a t-amp with the TA2020 chip, Ali?

[Reid Malenfant]

Hmmm ..... .... I should borrow twelvebears' avatar - I can't decide what to do!

a) get a HLLY 90 amp
or
b) get another 2020 and bi-amp

Here's a thought Jerry Why not go for the HLLY & bi-amp, i'm sure that the bigger amp will be a lot happier doing bass/mid duties than a 20Watter

Sorry to add to the confusion

[jandl100]

Hmm, yeah, thanks for that, Mark!

Thing is, I am entranced by the astonishing transparency of the TA2020 amp ... sometimes small amps do that better than larger amps.

Has anyone tried both TA2020 and TA2022-based amps?

[Ali Tait]

I believe Hamish has,and was surprised by how much better the Hlly was.

[Reid Malenfant]

Thing is, I am entranced by the astonishing transparency of the TA2020 amp ... sometimes small amps do that better than larger amps.

I can't say that i have knowingly heard any class T amps, but from the design perspective they'll be much more linear or if you like "cleaner sounding" at lower volume levels. The reason for this is simple, like a class D amp it uses a switching output stage & reconstitutes the signal via a low pass filter to get rid as best as possible the fundamental switching frequency of the output stage.

Unlike class D, T amps use a much higher switching frequency (MHz range) at "low" volume levels where linearity is important, this results in slightly less efficiency (due to increased switching losses) but better sound Over a few Watts of output your 20W class T will revert to a lower switching frequency to increase efficiency but at the expense of linearity

With class T amps in other words you'll likely get a better sound up to a higher volume level with a bigger amp that'll possibly go to 10W+ using the higher frequency switching before it needs to lower the switching frequency to 400KHz approximately.

With other amplifier types i might tend to agree with you, in this case i'm afraid i couldn't

My apologies if you already knew this information

[jandl100]

Thanks Mark - no, I didn't know that.

The thing is the TA2020 amp I have is way more transparent than the older TA2024 chip sound that I am familiar with. So IME not all T-amps are born equal!

I've not heard a 2022-based amp though.
... HAMISH !!! - where are you when someone needs you?