Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Sonic Impact T-Amp, Gen 2. Impressed.

I thought I'd post a mini review for the benefit of all...

I recently upgraded my primary room with a pair of QS8's, and this meant that my M22's would need another career elsewhere in my home. We (my wife & I) decided that we wanted to set them up in a 2.0 channel arrangement in our bedroom. The biggest problem would be that I'd need an amplification source. Like most of us, I have a couple of old receivers floating about my basement, but they were too bulky or looked too crusty to put in the bedroom. Since the music source would be almsot exclusively either streaming audio from the web (via Nokia N770) or via an iPod, a complex switcher wasn't needed. I didn't really feel like spending a whole lot of money right now on some new exotic amp, and my wife liked the idea of not having a big & bulky AVR sitting in the bedroom. It seemed like the time was right to try one of the much-fabled Sonic T-Amps that I've read about over the years.

So I bought one, from here. I noticed that they're on to 'Gen2' of the amp now, so I was looking forward to hearing it.
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=300-958

Received it on Friday, and hooked it all up this weekend.

First of all, it is absolutely clear that 99.9% of the cost of this thing is in the electronics, and not in the physical construction. It has the weight & feel of something that you might have won at a carnival. *Super* cheap construction. I've never seen speaker clips so cheap. Maybe on an old no-name chinese stereo from Wal-Mart. The power switch/volume pot feels like it was out of a cereal box. Reminded me of some of the $4.99 electronics I once bought from JC Whitney. It did not instill a great sense of quality. I was not all that hopeful as I hooked it up, and was somewhat resolved that I just wasted $50.

Then I turned it on, and those criticisms vanished. The sound was absolutely delightful. Half-volume was sufficient for nice, normal listening levels in our room. Not head-banging loud, but beyond conversation level. Just pleasant, enjoying-the-music volume. We spent about an hour just listening. It's been awhile since I've reveled in the beautiful honesty of the m22's by themselves with no sub. I was immediately impressed with the bass. My expectations for solid bass were pretty low, being that m22's aren't bass monsters and this amp was so tiny with such a meager output. But my goodness. Cranking up the volume to 75% or so, the amp could still really drive the m22's . Lots of beautiful Axiom sound, with an amazing amount of bass. It's been awhile since I've seen the cones move like that! Listening to some bass heavy music, it was enough to really thump. Mids and highs met my expectations. Midrange was smooth and pleasant, and not over-emphasized. Just what you'd expect from Axiom. Similarly, the highs were also as expected, crystal clear and clean.

Overall, the sound was very balanced and clean. This amp just makes my M22's sing. The hype about these amps really seems justified. Only at 90%+ volume levels did it start to clip, and at that point it was considerably louder than we'd normally listen. I'm not going to say that the amp is worth 10 times the price, because it probably isn't. But for $50, I can't think of a better way to power a small, 2 channel setup. Really quite perfect for a smaller room sized system that doesn't need a full blown AVR. We're really quite impressed, and for $50?! Yikes!

Not to take anything away from Axiom's Audiobytes, but I suspect that this amp paired with any of Axiom's bookshelf speakers would make a delicious PC speaker setup.

Peter,

Thanks for the review.

It appears that pairing the Sonic-T 9W/channel up with an M3 can lead to SPLs of 99dB to 102dB at three feet while the Audiobytes can produce 107dB to 110dB.

For me, M3s would have been too large for the office but they may work for others.

M3s with a Sonic-T turn out to be more expensive than Audiobytes. Audiobytes also deliver higher SPL performance. For someone that has a pair of extra speakers kicking around and doesn't know what to do with them, the Sonic-T appears to be a good buy for background listening.

Wow, that went from $30 to $80. I'm surprised the box isn't higher quality. Might be good for an office setup... Hmm.

THank for the review.

MSRP might be $80, but I only paid $50 for it from PartsExpress.

Still, a $20 bump in price over what the 'old' T-Amp was. And I believe that I've read that there's nothing really new with the 'Gen2' other than the shape of the box.

I couldn't agree more regarding how cheap it looks and feels. I honestly laughed out loud when I removed it from the packaging.

I'm using mine with a pair of Rocket RS250's. It works really well. The sound is very nice and clean. Great bass output. Wide soundstage. It's a keeper.

Three Sonic-T amps and 3 pairs of these puppies below and you have a surround sound system for $210.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=300-950

I just replaced my Sonic T-Amp (first generation I think) with a 20 watt NAD receiver (7220PE). The sonic amp was pretty good, the NAD is clearly better. Even my wife was impressed. She doesn't listen to music - except for a few weeks around Christmas. She said "even I think that sounds very good."

I think the T-Amp gen one construction is ok - plastic and odd shaped - but small. I haven't seen the gen 2 in person.

I think the 2nd gen has a headphone jack while the first gen does not.

"New for the Gen 2 T-Amp is a regulated, 12 VDC switching power supply rated at 3 amps output. Also included is a stereo 3.5 mm input port for iPods® or MP3 players, a stereo 3.5 mm plug to stereo RCA jack adapter, and a six foot stereo 3.5 mm plug to stereo RCA plug cable and a 3.5 mm headphone output."

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl...FTOKEN=52340116

20 Watt NAD? I didn't think that existed.

I have an old 20 watt NAD receiver stashed in the closet. They do indeed exist.