Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Small sized amp with BIG watts

Hi folks!

I've been lurking since here since I bought a house and remodeled. It's a really long story, but after remodeling a pipe burst and forced us to remodel a second time! Phew! Well after several months and lots of dust I've been enjoying my surround setup with W3s in the the living room and W2s in the master bedroom. The onwall installation looks very clean and modern. The sound is amazing! Both setups are being powered by Pioneer Elite recievers and run with SVsubs. Wow-wow!

On to my question...

Does anybody know of an affordable stereo amp for my office desk? I want something about the size of a MacMini with as much juice as possible. For my desk I'm leaning towards the M2s. I've come across a few tube amps, but would prefer to stay modern and don't want any kit type projects.

For converstions sake...

In my master bedroom and living room I found a great deal on Squeezeboxes [www.slimdevices.com]. So I have access to my whole music collection. The sound quality is amazing and it's great to make playlists from your laptop. Most of my MP3s come from ripping CDs in a lossless format, but I also record (time shift) XM radio into individual MP3 song files. They sit in a temp folder until I have a chance to clean up the names then move them into my library. I'd love to chat more about my setup if you have questions as I'm really happy with all the puzzle pieces comming together.

Thank you!

-V

There is the Parasound Zamp that would be worth a look.

Or this... http://emotiva.com/bpa1.html

Scott

That's a good call and cheaper too.

Just curious - - why do you want a high power amp for desk top near field use? If it isn't too inexpensive, I'd recommend this $159 2 channel amp:



Sonic Impact Model TA2024 Super T power amplifier

If you'd rather stay under $50 and still get superb sound quality, I'd go with a T-Amp which you can get for between $25-40. These are 5 wpc into 8 ohms. They are a superb match for the M3Ti. I have both M3s and M2s, and for stereo use, I prefer the M3s.

I have a bunch of these, use them with a simple pyramid 13.8V 3Amp power converter instead of a bunch of AA batteries. I swapped out the capacitor for a nice 2.2uf Solen, and this thing sounds ridiculously good.

Just a thought. Of course, they're so light you may want to get a little dab of velcro to make sure the power cord doesn't drag the thing off your desk.

5 watts per chennal is more than enough to drive M3s at a very high volume level. Most of the time, these 93db beauties don't need more than 1-2 watts for big sound. Don't forget, 93db efficient means 1 watt drives a speaker to 93 db at 1 meter. That's loud for nearfield use.

VS, welcome. The Parasound Zamp that both Rick and Brandon mentioned is certainly a fine little unit. The review in the Audio Critic that was quoted in part is found in full here , and is a very thorough analysis well worth reading.

It's probably more than you really need, however; as 2x6 pointed out, the power requirements in your situation should be quite modest. At your listening distance about a tenth of a watt would be used by the M3s for a comfortably loud average listening level; requirements for brief peaks would depend on the dynamic range of the material being played, but wouldn't be likely to be more than about 10 watts. So, it isn't likely that you need "BIG" watts or need to be concerned about "juice". A less expensive unit, even a regular HT receiver such as the Onkyo 504 for around $160(if you positioned it out of the way), would be cost-effective and could be possibly used in an expanded role in the future.