[Technology] Cheap Chinese Amplifiers

[happypig]

I'm putting together a little music player for my workshop and pub shed. I've bagged a pair of speakers off the Facebook but I need a cheap amp and I've seen some small ones on Ebay. Anyone tried them ?

 

[Albion my Albion]

Have you checked the price for tariffs?

 

[clapham_gull]

Great band.

 

[1066familyman]

Check out this forum for reviews:

New posts

www.audiosciencereview.com

It's quite US based, but still relevant for us. The owner, Amir, does lots of reviews of hifi gear from peanuts to expensive.

It's a very varied forum, but mainly he and the members are all about measurements and basically saving people from spending money on 'audiophile snake oil' lol.

 

[pb21]

Plenty of good / very good / excellent Chinese headfi products (headphones etc.) that I know of, unsure about speaker amps though.

 

[Barnet Seagull]

If you're going cheap Chinese, see if you can find something with a decent TPA chip inside which are in general good quality. You need to know what the max wattage of the speakers you're driving is to get an amp with enough punch.

 

[1066familyman]

Plenty of good / very good / excellent Chinese headfi products (headphones etc.) that I know of, unsure about speaker amps though.

'Chi-fi' is certainly everywhere in the headfi world, at all price points. Lots of it is very good indeed.

 

[Goldstone1976]

I’d be slightly suspicious of an ad that spelled their product ‘ampfilier’.

 

[Badger]

It's the LAW to post this in any hi-fi thread

 

[Madafwo]

I was looking at some chi-fi the other week but at the other end of the scale.

If it's cheap and cheerful and and does what you need it to why not buy it off of Aliexpress/Temu and avoid the mark up that sellers on eBay and Amazon have added.

I'm doing something similar for our conservatory but ended up going down the Raspberry Pi route with a dac + amp combo.

 

[chip]

I have a variation of that in my workshop. Sounds fine with a pair of small Mordaunt Short speakers and bluetooth works as you'd expect. Cost about £8 from ebay. Can be a bit sensitive to the volume control. Plenty loud enough too.

 

[darkwolf666]

Great band.

Think I saw them support Bombay Bicycle Club!

 

[happypig]

I was looking at some chi-fi the other week but at the other end of the scale.

If it's cheap and cheerful and and does what you need it to why not buy it off of Aliexpress/Temu and avoid the mark up that sellers on eBay and Amazon have added.

I'm doing something similar for our conservatory but ended up going down the Raspberry Pi route with a dac + amp combo.

Good shout, went onto ali express last night and they were giving me a new user offer. Ordered two amps to try out (and a big bag of cable ties) for about five quid.
I'm also using an old Pi with a hifiberry DAC running Volumio (had them in the parts bin).

 

[METALMICKY]

It's the LAW to post this in any hi-fi thread

Indeed! "You want a bag on your head?"

 

[Madafwo]

Good shout, went onto ali express last night and they were giving me a new user offer. Ordered two amps to try out (and a big bag of cable ties) for about five quid.
I'm also using an old Pi with a hifiberry DAC running Volumio (had them in the parts bin).

I added a Pi Touch 2 display and linked it up to an old Arcam amp I had lying around with some old studio monitors I also had lying around for the wife to use when she's in the garage doing physio.

It's slightly worrying how much I had just lying around, it was only the display and display stand that I needed to get it all set up.