T-Amps for car audio?

[Dozyproductions]

Let me know if this hasn't be covered a million times. My search powers are weak.


Guessing there have been a few people who tried using a Chinese 'home' t-amps for car audio. I have a 3116d2 working my home speakers at the moment and definitely gives 'livelier' sound than some of my older NADs and Sansuis. I'm going to buy a car amp but just wondering with the idea and if a t-amp would be durable enough to be able to provide noise free power in a car environment. Definitely some challenges with wiring, fuses, splicing and a remote wire function.

Example boards:
TDA8954TH
TDA7498E
step up converter

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[SlugButter]

The amp would work, but the power supply is an issue. You have to step up voltage, which sounds easy enough, but the boost converters have an issue. When you step up voltage at the outputs of a buck converter, you lose amperage. Rough example: If you have 12 volts and 20 amps coming in at the inputs of the boost converter, and converting to 32 volts, you lose a ton of amperage at the output side running to the amp board. You no longer have the 20 amps you started with at the inputs. The higher you boost the voltage, the more amperage you need at the input side of your boost converter to get voltage up on the output side. The circuitry on the boost converter will likely fail. I have the larger boost converters from Ali express and tried this. I wanted to boost to 12 volts up to 70 volts, which works, but they have a 20 amp fuse at the inputs of the converter. When I boost the power to 70 volts, it works, but I’m only getting 70 volts and 2 amps at the outputs with the 12 volts and 20 amps coming in at the inputs. The amplifier board needs more than 2 amps to run, so once the amps pull the power it needs at the output, the input spikes over 20 amps trying to supply the boosted side, the fuses blow. The power conversion process is way too inefficient to realistically spend much time doing it.

 

[Dozyproductions]

The amp would work, but the power supply is an issue. You have to step up voltage, which sounds easy enough, but the boost converters have an issue. When you step up voltage at the outputs of a buck converter, you lose amperage. Rough example: If you have 12 volts and 20 amps coming in at the inputs of the boost converter, and converting to 32 volts, you lose a ton of amperage at the output side running to the amp board. You no longer have the 20 amps you started with at the inputs. The higher you boost the voltage, the more amperage you need at the input side of your boost converter to get voltage up on the output side. The circuitry on the boost converter will likely fail. I have the larger boost converters from Ali express and tried this. I wanted to boost to 12 volts up to 70 volts, which works, but they have a 20 amp fuse at the inputs of the converter. When I boost the power to 70 volts, it works, but I’m only getting 70 volts and 2 amps at the outputs with the 12 volts and 20 amps coming in at the inputs. The amplifier board needs more than 2 amps to run, so once the amps pull the power it needs at the output, the input spikes over 20 amps trying to supply the boosted side, the fuses blow. The power conversion process is way too inefficient to realistically spend much time doing it.

thanks for the response. Was wondering if the electric magic was going to work Knowing nothing about how many amps are originally running through the system, what about a more conservative scenario where we're cranking 12 volts to 24 v? How can we figure out the figures coming to the input?

 

[SlugButter]

thanks for the response. Was wondering if the electric magic was going to work Knowing nothing about how many amps are originally running through the system, what about a more conservative scenario where we're cranking 12 volts to 24 v? How can we figure out the figures coming to the input?

You could probably boost to 24 volts. That’s a lot easier than the 70 volts I was trying to get to. You will probably have to get a higher quality boost converter though. One with circuitry that has some better quality designing. . Wondom/sure electronics makes a boost converter that would work a lot better, but it’s also 65$. Most of the Chinese boost/buck converters would be used for something very low in power, like a small solar panel running a light bulb or 2. . They weren’t made to boost the amount of power that an audio amplifier needs.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

Why would you pay 80$ for a board alone, then buy/build a power supply then buy/build a heatsink when you could buy the same 200Wx2 ready to go in a heat sink for less money?

We've come a long way into cheap power, why try to reinvent the wheel?

 

[SlugButter]

Hispl is right. I messed around with this when I ordered a ton of stuff to build my own home stereo, and it wasn’t cost effective. I have a build log somewhere on here doing this with a little 8 inch sub for my Jeep. I was trying to create a system similar to the infinity basslink. This would also be a regulated power supply, meaning that no matter how much voltage is coming in at the input, the output will remain constant, as opposed to how car amplifiers normally run, which is an unregulated power supply, so when you supply higher voltage you get higher watts on the amplified end to the speakers. The input side of the power supply will have a dynamic range of power coming in on a boost converter, depending on what the amplifier board is needing at the moment, but the output side will always remain the same. You will lose way too much power in the form of heat to make this type of power supply efficient enough to run in a 12 volt environment. These amp boards work great when converting 120 volts ac power into 70 volts dc power (or whatever volts the amp board works at), as they were designed to do.

 

[Dozyproductions]

Cheap and decent 80 watts @ 4 ohms x 4 costs 400-500 zloty where I live. Used is of course less but also with less power. Speaking in terms of amps, the last time I was in the car audio scene US amps wasn't bought out (if memory serves me well) and PPI art series were still plentiful online and wanted by all. Still miss my Oz Audio 180cs components /nostalgia road

So the watt to price ratio is still pretty high here. Merely musing over the idea and y'all gave some decent answers. You're absolutely right though. Not worth the down the road headaches/costs with an amp build.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

Cheap and decent 80 watts @ 4 ohms x 4 costs 400-500 zloty where I live

A friend and old business associate of mine lives in Gdynia and bought into Alpine amps that he smuggled home. I think he has been buying Focal and JL speakers over there for his cars, but he likes spending on nice toys and makes good money now as a software developer. He has mentioned prices there and it sounds pretty rough, but a lot of stuff just isn't practical for him to try to mule back home on a plane. That said he has taken home almost a full woodshop worth of power tools, bicycles, and always clothing and electronics.

Normally he'll show up and buy a couple phones, a couple laptops (one for work and one for personal when customs asks), a tablet, video game system, and anything else he can pass off as his personal when he gets back to customs then flog it over there for enough profit to pay for his trip.

Anyway 200x2 for around 100$ here on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FGV0V0W/?tag=caraudiocom-20

Even after VAT tax you can probably own one of those in your country for less than what you would have into a DIY project. IF budget and big power is your only concern this is going to be your best bet.

While the old 1$ per watt stuff was all very nice in its day and holds special nostalgia for me too, it is all completely obsolete by every measure. You can buy far better quality today for less than 1$ per watt. I liked the generation of PPI after art series and I think it was 2002 when US Amps started going downhill. Right now you can probably still buy some of that old stuff from collectors but you would need to plan to pay for restoration because the electrolytic capacitors are likely approaching the end of their service life.

 

[Dozyproductions]

A friend and old business associate of mine lives in Gdynia and bought into Alpine amps that he smuggled home. I think he has been buying Focal and JL speakers over there for his cars, but he likes spending on nice toys and makes good money now as a software developer. He has mentioned prices there and it sounds pretty rough, but a lot of stuff just isn't practical for him to try to mule back home on a plane. That said he has taken home almost a full woodshop worth of power tools, bicycles, and always clothing and electronics.

Normally he'll show up and buy a couple phones, a couple laptops (one for work and one for personal when customs asks), a tablet, video game system, and anything else he can pass off as his personal when he gets back to customs then flog it over there for enough profit to pay for his trip.

Anyway 200x2 for around 100$ here on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FGV0V0W/?tag=caraudiocom-20

Even after VAT tax you can probably own one of those in your country for less than what you would have into a DIY project. IF budget and big power is your only concern this is going to be your best bet.

While the old 1$ per watt stuff was all very nice in its day and holds special nostalgia for me too, it is all completely obsolete by every measure. You can buy far better quality today for less than 1$ per watt. I liked the generation of PPI after art series and I think it was 2002 when US Amps started going downhill. Right now you can probably still buy some of that old stuff from collectors but you would need to plan to pay for restoration because the electrolytic capacitors are likely approaching the end of their service life.

Heh. Sounds about right with what you're friend does and a genius idea. If anything, you should visit that tri city area. Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot are great places! To give further perspective; a laptop from the U.S. costed me 4,500zl ($1,300) when a comparable one here costs 6,700zl. My mother's Jetta, in San Diego, will sell for 8000zl ($2,000ish) there when it can sell for 28,000zl here. It's insane on some of the stuff.

So Taramps are the new thing? Thank you for the heads up!

If you don't mind me asking; I want to buy Sinuslive SL-f165 + neo30 and the specs say the passive components have 100 RMS for each side yet the individual driver specs, given by the manufacturer, for the woofer and tweeter are 100 RMS @ 4 ohms each. Doesn't make sense but I know little.

In my city there's a used Mac Audio amp available that will give me 4x80 @ 4 ohms, so even though it's 20 watts under RMS for each driver it's 60 watts over, per channel (bridged), when using the passive crossover. Don't know which approach is better.

If I went the DSP route would is the basic idea that each driver using using it's own single channel? Getting one seems like the thing that's done now There's a cheaper component set Mac Audio BLK 2.16 that could handle a bridged amp @ 4 ohms. (woofer 100rms, tweeter 50rms) Is DSP still worth it if adjustable xover points won't be an option?

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

Heh. Sounds about right with what you're friend does and a genius idea. If anything, you should visit that tri city area. Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot are great places! To give further perspective; a laptop from the U.S. costed me 4,500zl ($1,300) when a comparable one here costs 6,700zl. My mother's Jetta, in San Diego, will sell for 8000zl ($2,000ish) there when it can sell for 28,000zl here. It's insane on some of the stuff.

So Taramps are the new thing? Thank you for the heads up!

If you don't mind me asking; I want to buy Sinuslive SL-f165 + neo30 and the specs say the passive components have 100 RMS for each side yet the individual driver specs, given by the manufacturer, for the woofer and tweeter are 100 RMS @ 4 ohms each. Doesn't make sense but I know little.

In my city there's a used Mac Audio amp available that will give me 4x80 @ 4 ohms, so even though it's 20 watts under RMS for each driver it's 60 watts over, per channel (bridged), when using the passive crossover. Don't know which approach is better.

If I went the DSP route would is the basic idea that each driver using using it's own single channel? Getting one seems like the thing that's done now There's a cheaper component set Mac Audio BLK 2.16 that could handle a bridged amp @ 4 ohms. (woofer 100rms, tweeter 50rms) Is DSP still worth it if adjustable xover points won't be an option?

About the only thing my friend gets fairly priced there is new German cars. It is funny he will buy a new BMW for what he would have to pay for a new Toyota! Still more than we pay here on either, but by comparison the Euro built cars are cheap compared to American/Japanese.

Taramps is the brand to look at if your top concern is low price and big power. They are very low priced and will deliver rated power, and are reasonably reliable compared to similar priced budget brands.

I don't know anything about sinuslive lineup but the power handling of the set should be = the power handling of the weakest component. You're just splitting the power into high frequency and low frequency, not halving the overall power to each driver. I would NOT attempt to run a component set with 50W rated tweeter and 100W rated woofer. I think you will break a lot of tweeters if you try this with 80 or 100W amp! Also the difference between 80 and 100W should be nearly inaudible. Do not get hung up on differences of less than 30% when it comes to comparing power output of amps as below that most people will not be able to notice the difference without precision measurement equipment.

DSP should have built in crossover options and ideally you would use 1 channel per individual driver, but even just use of the time alignment and parametric EQ should help if you're running 1 channel to a component set through passive crossover.

And yes, I really do want to go over and visit my friend in Poland. Mainly I just don't ever seem to have a full week that I could just be away from home though. My work keeps me very busy and I raise poultry for meat and eggs for myself which requires daily tending.

 

[Dozyproductions]

About the only thing my friend gets fairly priced there is new German cars. It is funny he will buy a new BMW for what he would have to pay for a new Toyota! Still more than we pay here on either, but by comparison the Euro built cars are cheap compared to American/Japanese.

Taramps is the brand to look at if your top concern is low price and big power. They are very low priced and will deliver rated power, and are reasonably reliable compared to similar priced budget brands.

I don't know anything about sinuslive lineup but the power handling of the set should be = the power handling of the weakest component. You're just splitting the power into high frequency and low frequency, not halving the overall power to each driver. I would NOT attempt to run a component set with 50W rated tweeter and 100W rated woofer. I think you will break a lot of tweeters if you try this with 80 or 100W amp! Also the difference between 80 and 100W should be nearly inaudible. Do not get hung up on differences of less than 30% when it comes to comparing power output of amps as below that most people will not be able to notice the difference without precision measurement equipment.

DSP should have built in crossover options and ideally you would use 1 channel per individual driver, but even just use of the time alignment and parametric EQ should help if you're running 1 channel to a component set through passive crossover.

And yes, I really do want to go over and visit my friend in Poland. Mainly I just don't ever seem to have a full week that I could just be away from home though. My work keeps me very busy and I raise poultry for meat and eggs for myself which requires daily tending.

Will say this. If you're going to make any trip here, it'll have to be for more than a weekend or two so that definitely will be a hard one to figure out

Both of those sets I mentioned have inconsistent set and individual driver rms ratings. Wonder if this is something more normal than we think.

If you're interested. I use google translate to navigate these sights:
Sinuslive component set
Mac Audio 2.16 Blk

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

Both of those sets I mentioned have inconsistent set and individual driver rms ratings. Wonder if this is something more normal than we think.

Most of those small component "power ratings", are very dependent on crossover frequencies. A small tweeter may take 100W if only used above 4000hz but fail quickly if you cross it down at 1500hz. Figure the same with midrange. As you go below 100hz you can reach mechanical limits and destroy them mechanically long before you run into thermal failure.

It is hard to go with published numbers without knowing if the brand in question has a reputation for being honest about them.

 

[Dozyproductions]

Most of those small component "power ratings", are very dependent on crossover frequencies. A small tweeter may take 100W if only used above 4000hz but fail quickly if you cross it down at 1500hz. Figure the same with midrange. As you go below 100hz you can reach mechanical limits and destroy them mechanically long before you run into thermal failure.

It is hard to go with published numbers without knowing if the brand in question has a reputation for being honest about them.

Most of those small component "power ratings", are very dependent on crossover frequencies. A small tweeter may take 100W if only used above 4000hz but fail quickly if you cross it down at 1500hz. Figure the same with midrange. As you go below 100hz you can reach mechanical limits and destroy them mechanically long before you run into thermal failure.

It is hard to go with published numbers without knowing if the brand in question has a reputation for being honest about them.

Very true. The BLK tweeter is crossed at 4,000hz. My home audio stuff is crossed at 2,100hz!