Fosi Audio TB10D Amplifier Review

[milosz]

A bargain, great little amp for a repair bench. You know, to hear if a CD player, streamer, DAC, PC or etc that you have on the bench is putting out line level audio-

 

[AudioSceptic]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Fosi Audio TB10D stereo amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and is only sale for US $70 on Amazon including shipping.
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We have the typical compact desktop aluminum case. Controls feel nice for the class. Tone controls are not centered however for flat response (you can see in the picture what I set them to). Typical of these budget amplifiers, power is provided externally through a switching supply:
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Binding posts are spaced out a bit more which made it easier for me to plug in my large cables.

This is a class D amplifier based on TI TPA3255 single chip amplifier.

Fosi Audio TB10D Measurements
Let's start with our usual 5 watts measurement of 1 kHz tone into 4 ohm load:
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Dominant distortion is third harmonic which essentially sets SINAD to same level. This is slightly below average but considering the price of this amp, it is reasonable:
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Kind of interesting that the $5,900 Jeff Rowland 535 amplifier lands almost next to it!

Signal to noise ratio is modest but again, good for the class:
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Crosstalk holds its own against much more expensive amplifiers:
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Frequency response is variable due to bass and treble control and load dependency:
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The load dependency is the norm in this class. Hopefully some amp comes along and with no cost penalty takes care of that (by incorporating the output filter into the feedback loop).

Distortion rises with frequency which we can see in multitone test:
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Power is everything in amplifiers so let's see how much we have:
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This is quite healthy for such a small and low cost amplifier! It gets even better if we allow 1% distortion:
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We are talking essentially 200 watts coming out of this little box! Cost per watt is just 35 cents. Amazing.

Even with 8 ohm load we get good amount of juice:
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Amplifier "transfer function" (output vs input) is very good for class D although it does show rise in distortion as noted earlier:
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Of note, you still have 66 watts of power at 20 Hz. Many budget amps drop to 20 or so watts which can be problem as bass is what requires power.

Conclusions
Maybe one day this will change for for now, in under $100 range you can't expect perfection in performance of a stereo amplifier. What you do want to see is delivering healthy amount of power with close to our average of all of our amplifiers tested to date. On that front, the Fosi Audio TB10D delivers. If you need an amplifier for secondary use (bedroom, workshop, etc.), the TB10D is a very good candidate for no more money than one or two dinners!

I am going to recommend the Fosi Audio TB10D amplifier.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Amir, nice review but in the last chart, shouldn't it say
Max power 66 watts at 20 Hz (good)
?

 

[HuubFranssen]

Wow, both cheapaudiomen disagree. What will happen to us now?

 

[diddley]

Wow, both cheapaudiomen disagree. What will happen to us now?

Somebody that says that there is a difference between measurement and actual listening test.
i believe this is a great example.

 

[Michou]

Somebody that says that there is a difference between measurement and actual listening test.
Witch i believe this is a great example.

You mean witchcraft?

 

[diddley]

You mean witchcraft?

thanks corrected

 

[Michou]

thanks corrected

Almost but not quite ;-)

 

[diddley]

Not quite...

Well i deleted the complete word, now it should be good, would it? remember not my first language

 

[escape2]

Device "reviewed" by Andrew Robinson a.k.a. Cheapaudioman

FYi, Andrew Robinson is not Cheapaudioman. They are both YT reviewers though.

 

[Michou]

Well i deleted the complete word, now it should be good, would it? remember not my first language

Not mine either, I was just trying to be witty, no offense. Disregard and ignore.

 

[Michou]

FYi, Andrew Robinson is not Cheapaudioman. They are both YT reviewers though.

Thanks for pointing out my mistake, I was out of focus and blundered, will correct ASAP

 

[AndreaT]

As a side note to my post…from the 1970’s GBC catalogue…we have come a long way…

 

[JayGilb]

Device "reviewed" by Cheapaudioman some months ago and he absolutely trashed it. Complained about noise and unit sounding bad. Different strokes, I guess but I am still curious to hear comments from users that actually listened to it Here is a link FYI:

Rule #1 is to never listen to reviewers who make money from the items they review.

From his videos:
If you click on this link and sign up for a free trial I will receive a small referral fee.
If you use any of my links to purchase products I will receive a small commission on the sale of that item. Won’t cost you any more to purchase with the link.

 

[renaudrenaud]

What, no remote, no multichannel, no big screen, no XLR?

 

[restorer-john]

Look, for the money and the performance, it's insanely good.

Not remotely SOTA, but more than good enough for a decent rendition of HiFi for a whole lotta people for very little money.

 

[GambaKufu]

Device "reviewed" by Andrew Robinson a.k.a. Cheapaudioman some months ago and he absolutely trashed it. Complained about noise and init sounding bad. Different strokes, I guess. Here is a link FYI:

I'm sure quality control can be an issue at this end of the price bracket, and can foresee a situation where a manufacturer sent item is of perfect performance while someone buying from Amazon may have received a dud.

 

[BALKAN_RAKIA]

$100 and under amplifiers is my favorite category. This is what is going to bring in the new people to the hobby, not the Benchmark stuff. Also will allow people to spend more of their budget to the stuff that matters the most - speakers and subwoofers. And then after a while the second hand market for these will be basically giving away for free. Get one of these, get some $100 second hand jbl tower speakers - insane gaming setup on the cheap. Gateway drug.

 

[Rick Sykora]

Device "reviewed" by Cheapaudioman some months ago and he absolutely trashed it. Complained about noise and unit sounding bad. Different strokes, I guess but I am still curious to hear comments from users that actually listened to it Here is a link FYI:

Not sure why I should care about his opinion. No measurements and, for that matter, he could have gotten a bad unit.

If we are going to give someone youtube hits, let’s go with someone more credible please!

 

[mctron]

Why would you get this over the Aiyima A07?

If you want the tone control knobs

 

[holbob]

Not sure why I should care about his opinion. No measurements and, for that matter, he could have gotten a bad unit.

If we are going to give someone youtube hits, let’s go with someone more credible please!

Someone like Erin perhaps? In fact - Erin did a video with cheapaudioman. It was like watching a chimp throw his own faeces at a professor.