Best Budget headphone/speaker amp ever?

Doesn't look too bad. 50 EUR so about 75 USD isn't too bad either.

Looks like the Chinese are at it again (not a bad thing in case you haven't noticed some of the great products for pretty unbelievable prices that have shown up from them over the last couple of years). The Sonic Impact T-amp looks like it might have some serious competition (and considering they just released a gen 2 for about the same price as this, which also includes a headphone jack and I believe an AC adapter). This is a very good thing.

I can't take that review too seriously as he has only about one paragraph on the actual sound of it, and then says that he's been spoiled by having 5.1/7.1 systems in use at home (in other words he talks like this being only a 2 channel amp is a bad thing, when its neither good nor bad). He even applies EQ and EAX effects and is using the motherboards integrated audio as his source (and then mentions distortion from the amp at loud volumes). I don't mean to be so harsh on the guy, as thats typical of audio reviews on computer sites, but yeah, I wouldn't base my buying decision on that review.

$50 it could be horrible and I wouldn't care. I mean I could do alot of other things to lose $50. I hope the price stays low, as soon as I have a home again I will jump on this.

Since you mentioned speaker amp too....

Try and snag a vintage integrated or receiver from your local thrift shop. Seriously, they are all beasts for the most part. For example, I once picked up a late 70s MOSFET JVC receiver, in perfect shape, for 12 bucks. The headphone out made use of the mosfet outputs, and it sounded phenomenal! Gave it away since, but i still have a boatload of quality vintage, and it never disappoints.

probably worth a $50 investment

I do a bit of shopping at Directron. I will toss one in my shopping cart and pick it up next time I'm there. Could be interesting.

Does anyone have any more about this amp? I am looking at purchasing one as a low cost amp for possibly a pair of HD555's or HD595's.

Actually, Scythe is a Japanese company.

It's a little bizzare routing all of your cables into your computer case where the thing is mounted. I mean, routing both rca, power cables, and speaker cables through the back of the computer? Would make a lot more sense if they provided some kind of backplane connector with the binding posts on the outside of the computer case, and maybe had USB audio. I'd probably not try to put this in my computer case. Still, it's interesting. We need more information about how it works and how it sounds.

I have one of Panasonic's all-digital class D receivers. No one is going to call it "tubey," or "euphoric," but if what you're looking for is neutrality, oodles of headroom, stunning dynamic range, lightning-fast transients, a non-existent noise floor and distortion so low that it is silly to even bring it up, it is the best $199 you'll ever spend. Maybe the best $1999 you'll ever spend.

I'm convinced that this is the future of everything but specialty audio. High-end that strives for neutrality will eventually disappear in the face of this stuff because it can deliver the goods so inexpensively. Analog and all things colored and romantic is a completely different issue, of course.

The value of this little amp, as a headphone amp, depends on a few things -- I don't know the Yamaha D digitals. My Panny is built on the TIs. I'm sure they're fine though. How it is implemented is critical, of course, except that it is so cheap to do it right, it really doesn't make sense to screw it up. The big if is the implementation of the headphone section. If it is the digital amps knocked down by a resistor, or some other, more transparent means, to headphone levels, I want one on my desktop now. If it is a separate op amp circuit, it's probably no better than the headphone jack of a cheap CD player.

But someday, someone is going to build one of these things as a HP amp and they're going to do it right. And they are so efficient that "right" might even mean pocket-sized, battery-powered, and able to drive a pair of HD650s like a Xana Deux.

Then the world, as we know it, will change.

Tim

I noticed that..Well looks like the Japanese are at it again
lol..damn Americans can't read

Datasheet says it's 8W before THD (distortion) jumps to extreme.

For $75, I guess it's OK, but I would just go with an old receiver.

"For $75, I guess it's OK, but I would just go with an old receiver."

Right. .000000000000000007 thd and lousy sound. Old does not mean good, necessarily. Lots and lots of junk made in the 70s and 80s. Chip amps are revolutionary.