Sonic Impact T-Amp, Gen 2. Impressed. - 03/31/08 02:38 PM
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.
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.