I'm not sure where this should go, so I'm posting in the Newbie forum since it's my first post and it's been decades since I bought any audio gear except a DVD player.
I bought my original system with Definitive Technology BP-10 speakers and Adcom preamp and GFA-535 amp in 1991. Source was various CD/DVD players and TVs. I loved how these sounded and I carted them around ever since over maybe 10 moves. But my current living room doesn't have a good place to put the speakers and the system has been gathering dust for some time now.
A few days ago my 16-year old son decided to upgrade his room by buying a big TV. He asked me about soundbars and I suggested we try to get my old stereo installed in his room instead figuring it would have to sound better than a cheap soundbar. I set everything up and tested it and something has gone wrong with both the preamp and amp as I could only get intermittent sound out of it and only in certain configurations and only 1 channel at a time. Since he also wanted bluetooth capability, I ordered a Daakro AK-3116 integrated amp from Amazon for $45 sort of as a proof of concept and to make sure the speakers are still operating. There's a bunch of these around with various labels but they all appear to be the same box with a pair of Texas Instruments TPA3116 chips, physical toggle on/off switch, and remote.
It all showed up yesterday and after getting my original 12 gauge speaker wire cut back, stripped and set into banana plugs, I hooked the speakers to the amp, connected via bluetooth and everything miraculously all worked. A couple of hours later we had the TV mounted to the wall, connected that to the amp via BT and again we had sound. I should note that there's no RCA outputs on his Samsung TV, only optical. The amp has an optical input so I've ordered a cable.
My son was very impressed with the audio and I felt the mid and upper range was nearly as good as I remembered, but the bass was much less powerful than I remembered when listening to my old favorite tracks. We watched some movie trailers which tend to be very bass heavy and again the lack of bass was noticeable. Of course were listening via streamed YouTube Music through a bluetooth connection rather than CD, but I couldn't help but think that a more powerful amp would help with the lower registers.
So I started looking around for quality budget amp and eventually ended up on the Douk A5 largely due to the review on this site. I've already ordered it with the 48V 5A power supply from AliExpress for $78. My plan is to use the AK-3116 as a preamp since it has bluetooth, the optical input, and a remote and then use the Douk as an amp. My thought is if the bass is still underwhelming we can buy a cheap powered subwoofer and run that through the Douk as well.
So we finally get to my questions.
First, does this make sense? I wonder if I'm wasting time and money (admittedly not much money) by ordering the Douk instead of going straight to a powered sub or getting a better integrated amp. Or is my AK-3116 hopeless as a preamp and I should upgrade that as well?
Second, assuming this does make sense, how should he run the Douk? Is it ok to leave it on most of the time? The preamp will be probably be off when it's not in use. What volume setting should we leave the Douk on since he'd rather use the preamp's remote for volume control?
Anything else I'm not thinking of?
I bought my original system with Definitive Technology BP-10 speakers and Adcom preamp and GFA-535 amp in 1991. Source was various CD/DVD players and TVs. I loved how these sounded and I carted them around ever since over maybe 10 moves. But my current living room doesn't have a good place to put the speakers and the system has been gathering dust for some time now.
A few days ago my 16-year old son decided to upgrade his room by buying a big TV. He asked me about soundbars and I suggested we try to get my old stereo installed in his room instead figuring it would have to sound better than a cheap soundbar. I set everything up and tested it and something has gone wrong with both the preamp and amp as I could only get intermittent sound out of it and only in certain configurations and only 1 channel at a time. Since he also wanted bluetooth capability, I ordered a Daakro AK-3116 integrated amp from Amazon for $45 sort of as a proof of concept and to make sure the speakers are still operating. There's a bunch of these around with various labels but they all appear to be the same box with a pair of Texas Instruments TPA3116 chips, physical toggle on/off switch, and remote.
It all showed up yesterday and after getting my original 12 gauge speaker wire cut back, stripped and set into banana plugs, I hooked the speakers to the amp, connected via bluetooth and everything miraculously all worked. A couple of hours later we had the TV mounted to the wall, connected that to the amp via BT and again we had sound. I should note that there's no RCA outputs on his Samsung TV, only optical. The amp has an optical input so I've ordered a cable.
My son was very impressed with the audio and I felt the mid and upper range was nearly as good as I remembered, but the bass was much less powerful than I remembered when listening to my old favorite tracks. We watched some movie trailers which tend to be very bass heavy and again the lack of bass was noticeable. Of course were listening via streamed YouTube Music through a bluetooth connection rather than CD, but I couldn't help but think that a more powerful amp would help with the lower registers.
So I started looking around for quality budget amp and eventually ended up on the Douk A5 largely due to the review on this site. I've already ordered it with the 48V 5A power supply from AliExpress for $78. My plan is to use the AK-3116 as a preamp since it has bluetooth, the optical input, and a remote and then use the Douk as an amp. My thought is if the bass is still underwhelming we can buy a cheap powered subwoofer and run that through the Douk as well.
So we finally get to my questions.
First, does this make sense? I wonder if I'm wasting time and money (admittedly not much money) by ordering the Douk instead of going straight to a powered sub or getting a better integrated amp. Or is my AK-3116 hopeless as a preamp and I should upgrade that as well?
Second, assuming this does make sense, how should he run the Douk? Is it ok to leave it on most of the time? The preamp will be probably be off when it's not in use. What volume setting should we leave the Douk on since he'd rather use the preamp's remote for volume control?
Anything else I'm not thinking of?
