EHW Home Theatre / Speaker / Amplifier Club

[Snakecharmed]

1 hour ago, pioneerisloud said:

Okay cool, yeah that makes sense from what I knew about the Lepai and Daytons.  24v PSU's tend to bring these lower end audio chips to life a little better.

I will be in the market actually for a Q5 Pro or Dayton DTA2.1 here probably next month.  I was only partially kidding above lol.  My parents are moving into their new house, and I have some Dayton outdoor 6.5" speakers to mount up above in their back patio for outdoor music.  I was actually looking at those two specifically due to their subwoofer capabilities to add onto the system later.  Bluetooth of course is a must for this type of location and build.  I doubt they'll ever use a subwoofer on their back patio, but you never know and figured it'd be better to have the option and not need it.

 

If Bluetooth is a must, then the Q5 Pro would be out of the running, wouldn't it? It doesn't support Bluetooth.

 

The Dayton DTA-2.1BT just baffles me. I don't know why the sub out is powered when most standalone home subs are active. I can't even name a passive sub for the home. At least the updated DTA-2.1BT2 model has an adjustable low pass filter and costs only $90 on Parts Express instead of the laughable $125 you see it for on Amazon. I don't think it's worth it once you cross the $100 threshold where you have many more logical options.

 

I also didn't catch the edit on your previous post until now. The Q5 Pro is 45W x 2 at 4 Ω and 25W x 2 at 8 Ω. The SA300 is 80W x 2 at 4 Ω and 40W x 2 at 8 Ω. My Wharfedales are 6 Ω, 15-75W recommended. It's obviously better fed by the SA300.

Edited February 5, 2022 by Snakecharmed

[pio]

24 minutes ago, Snakecharmed said:

 

If Bluetooth is a must, then the Q5 Pro would be out of the running, wouldn't it? It doesn't support Bluetooth.

 

The Dayton DTA-2.1BT just baffles me. I don't know why the sub out is powered when most standalone home subs are active. I can't even name a passive sub for the home. At least the updated DTA-2.1BT2 model has an adjustable low pass filter and costs only $90 on Parts Express instead of the laughable $125 you see it for on Amazon. I don't think it's worth it once you cross the $100 threshold where you have many more logical options.

 

I also didn't catch the edit on your previous post until now. The Q5 Pro is 45W x 2 at 4 Ω and 25W x 2 at 8 Ω. The SA300 is 80W x 2 at 4 Ω and 40W x 2 at 8 Ω. My Wharfedales are 6 Ω, 15-75W recommended. It's obviously better fed by the SA300.

Dang you're right on the bluetooth thing, derp.  Coulda sworn that one had BT.  I've still been debating on buying one of those anyway, but yeah good point on the BT.  Need something with BT for the parents first, and I really don't have room in the budget to be buying personal stuff right now after spending so dang much already in 2022.

 

So yeah, you were probably feeding at most 30-35w per channel to your speakers which want 15-75w.  It's "enough", but only for nearfield listening, which I don't blame you if you want to jam out at times.   You're probably closer to 60w x2 on your speakers with the SA300 at 6ohm.  Definitely a much happier place.  I usually try to overpower if I can, but these little T amps are just so freaking adorable and awesome, can't help but enjoy them for their size.  More power available always means the power is cleaner (well 9 times out of 10 anyway).

Edited February 5, 2022 by pioneerisloud

[Snakecharmed]

I just played a song in my library that I haven't listened to in a few years on the SA300 and I didn't even recognize the intro. I might be taking another listen to much of my music collection now because I was not expecting to hear so many details I've never heard before in so many songs. Some of these first plays with the SA300 have me truly shocked, and that generally doesn't happen with music I've heard many times before.

 

11 hours ago, pioneerisloud said:

Dang you're right on the bluetooth thing, derp.  Coulda sworn that one had BT.  I've still been debating on buying one of those anyway, but yeah good point on the BT.  Need something with BT for the parents first, and I really don't have room in the budget to be buying personal stuff right now after spending so dang much already in 2022.

 

So yeah, you were probably feeding at most 30w per channel to your speakers which want 15-75w.  It's "enough", but only for nearfield listening, which I don't blame you if you want to jam out at times.   You're probably closer to 60w x2 on your speakers with the SA300 at 6ohm.  Definitely a much happier place.  I usually try to overpower if I can, but these little T amps are just so freaking adorable and awesome, can't help but enjoy them for their size.  More power available always means the power is cleaner (well 9 times out of 10 anyway).

 

I took another look at outdoor subs and it looks like a lot of them are passive since they're basically mobile audio units in a waterproof housing. So that does constitute a logical use case for the Dayton amp. I hadn't ever thought about how outdoor subs are built before because I always mentally grouped them as home/active and car/passive, although powered car audio subs are not uncommon.

 

Also, I just found out that the Q5 Pro and AD18 have the same chips for amplification, which is the TAS5342 and not the TAS5508 I mentioned before, which is the PWM processor. The Q5 Pro's rated power output was halved and I presume its inputs are noisier than the AD18's. I think the AD18 being housed in a larger chassis and shipped with a bigger power supply gave it more room to reach its potential than what I now suspect was a thermally limited Q5 Pro chassis design. The chassis of the SA300 is at ambient temperature while the Q5 Pro was usually running at what felt like a good 10-20° F above.

Edited February 5, 2022 by Snakecharmed

[pio]

18 hours ago, Snakecharmed said:

I just played a song in my library that I haven't listened to in a few years on the SA300 and I didn't even recognize the intro. I might be taking another listen to much of my music collection now because I was not expecting to hear so many details I've never heard before in so many songs. Some of these first plays with the SA300 have me truly shocked, and that generally doesn't happen with music I've heard many times before.

 

 

I took another look at outdoor subs and it looks like a lot of them are passive since they're basically mobile audio units in a waterproof housing. So that does constitute a logical use case for the Dayton amp. I hadn't ever thought about how outdoor subs are built before because I always mentally grouped them as home/active and car/passive, although powered car audio subs are not uncommon.

 

Also, I just found out that the Q5 Pro and AD18 have the same chips for amplification, which is the TAS5342 and not the TAS5508 I mentioned before, which is the PWM processor. The Q5 Pro's rated power output was halved and I presume its inputs are noisier than the AD18's. I think the AD18 being housed in a larger chassis and shipped with a bigger power supply gave it more room to reach its potential than what I now suspect was a thermally limited Q5 Pro chassis design. The chassis of the SA300 is at ambient temperature while the Q5 Pro was usually running at what felt like a good 10-20° F above.

I think you're right on both points. Psu definitely, but having a little more room for heat disappation never hurts either. 

 

Glad you're enjoying the sa300. Sounds like a great amp on paper.

 

I'm currently working on scoring a fosi audio 300w desktop sub amp for my setup. I'm not sure how fosi is, but I only really need 50w. Obviously I'm not going to see a real 300w out of it, but 50w should be doable. 

[pio]

So in the true "Pio" fashion, I just couldn't leave well enough alone........

I ordered to complete my $7.99 thrift store subwoofer the following:
Fosi Audio 300w desktop subwoofer amplifier

Monoprice banana plugs

New terminal plate

 

And I also bought some wood, glue, and screws.  I figured this would be more "proper" than having a wire hanging out of the port like I had it.  I also had it hooked up to my car amplifier, and that's just not right either.....hence buying the amplifier.  So far, this is my progress, and I'm into the project now about $120-130 (after tax) for a $7.99 thrift store find. -_-

 

 

[pio]

Not to say you chaps haven't done your own gluing and screwing in the past (maybe one more than the other? ).  But I feel accomplished this evening.  Did a really sub par job, completely forgot to tin both ends that I was working on before trying to join them together.  However.....they're stuck and not going anywhere, so mission accomplished!  I finally remembered how to solder properly on the very last terminal, the + on the terminal cup. 

Next up will be testing the seal on this new back to the sub.  I'll do that after the glue is fully dry.  Might wait until my new desktop sub amp arrives too since that should be any day now.  If I get antsy though, the car amp is still hooked up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Simmons]

Well folks, my apologies for my absence, but I just scraped through the thread, and I am fairly confident I have the list updated!  No changes to my audio setup lately as I am about to move across the country in about a month.  Nothing is really going to change with my setup, but a new location warrants new pics.  So I guess I have that to look forward to!

 

EDIT: Just finally got the spreadsheet embed corrected!

Edited February 1, 2023 by Simmons

[Snakecharmed]

Well, it's a year later and I've gone through two DACs in the last month.

 

After trying to pick between the Schiit Modius and SMSL Sanskrit 10th MKII, I ended up deciding on something else entirely. I wanted the SMSL M300 MKII to match my SA300 amp. However, the M300 MKII was apparently discontinued late last year. Hifi-express still had it in stock though, but on the night I was ready to buy it, I added it to my cart, then went to eat dinner, and came back to see it was out of stock. I clearly had practice for my Micro Center CPU/MB/RAM bundle out-of-stock experience last week.

 

That led me to scramble and opt for the SMSL Sanskrit 10th MKII, which I learned was also recently discontinued and succeeded by the slightly pricier MKIII. I still got a new 10th MKII without any hassle though and had been using it for a month. It's been a great DAC and the price was exceptional at a discounted $100.

 

I randomly looked up the M300 MKII on Hifi-express again a couple of weeks ago and this time, it was back in stock. Well, since that was my original target DAC for matching my SA300 as much as for using the AKM4497 DAC chip, I went ahead and bought it. Its price-performance ratio is much worse than the Sanskrit 10th MKII which has the AKM4493 like the original Schiit Modius, but a new M300 MKII on clearance cost nearly the same as a used AKM4493 Modius on eBay, so I guess it worked out. As of today, Hifi-express returns a 404 page instead of out of stock when looking up the M300 MKII, so now it's gone gone.

 

 

I can't hear the difference between the M300 MKII and the Sanskrit 10th MKII, which was itself not as dramatic of an upgrade as going from the SMSL Q5 Pro amp to the SA300. It is nice to get a noticeably cleaner and stronger signal to my speakers though. No more internal PC sound hardware for speaker output.

 

Also, I have audio output switching in Windows working for me for the first time ever with functional switching between the M300 MKII and my ancient Chaintech AV-710 sound card. At this point, I'm only using the AV-710 for basic front panel headphone output, and I'll be doing the same with the onboard sound on my new ROG Strix motherboard. Anyway, when I was running speaker output through the Wolfson DAC on the AV-710, switching to front panel audio required me to quit and restart every open audio stream, and Adobe Audition and Premiere would throw stream output errors when the Wolfson DAC was active. Glad I won't have to deal with those annoyances anymore.