ICEpower alternatives on a budget?

[This_guy_breaks_shit]

Hi All,

Figured I'd make an account so I can ask for the moon on a stick

I'm throwing together a design for a semi-portable party speaker. After a few weeks of learning, trial and error I've (mostly) settled on a driver selection and enclosure design. My problem now is amplifiers.

As it stands, I've got two ~50 wrms channels and a hungry hungry 150 wrms sub channel. I initially looked at some Sure Electronics amps (because who wouldn't at that price??) but discovered that they suffer from horrific distortion and noise. The next cheapest option I could find was ICEpower which seems fantastic, I don't think I'd have any problems with a 100AS2 + 200AS1 setup. Problem is that those two pieces of kit without any kind of enclosure cost £260!!

I know it's not much compared to some of the top-spec gear I've seen being thrown around here, but would it be possible to shave down the cost at all? I think the ICEpower modules offer better performance than I realistically need for this sort of thing, but I'm also not sure I want to descend into the >1% THD depths of WONDOM hell.

Is this as good as it gets around this price point? Or is there a better alternative for getting the most out of my budget?

50w L/R channels each consist of:
20w Tweeter @ 8Ω w/ analogue LR2 highpass at 2kHz
30w Midwoofer @ 4Ω w/ analogue LR2 lowpass at 2Khz and digital LR2 highpass at 150Hz

Sub channel consists of:
150w Subwoofer @ 4Ω w/ digital LR2 lowpass at 150Hz and digital BW4 highpass at 25Hz (will probably swap this for FIR highpass at some point to avoid mega group delay, but assume BW4 for now)

Sorry for the long post! Thanks in advance!

 

[RandomEar]

What about modules from Sure Electronics or Arylic? Should give you 2x 50 W for less than 60 £ and the sub amp for around 100.

 

[hex168]

Great question! I'm looking forward to seeing what members come up with.

 

[This_guy_breaks_shit]

What about modules from Sure Electronics or Arylic? Should give you 2x 50 W for less than 60 £ and the sub amp for around 100.

I haven't had a serious look at Arylic yet. I'll be sure to do some research.

As for Sure Electronics (a.k.a. WONDOM), I had trouble finding an amp from them with both:
A) THD below 1% at 50 watts in the 1-6kHz range
B) A reasonable noise floor for low-volume use
It seems to me that you can either have an oversized amp for acceptable THD or an undersized amp for acceptable low-volume SNR, but not both.

This article by Trevor Marshall seems to have a fairly comprehensive assessment of some SE/WONDOM hardware issues. Apparently you can get a half decent amp out of it if you do some modding, but I'd rather avoid the hassle.

That said, If anything I've stated here about SE/WONDOM hardware is wrong then please feel free to correct me. This is simply my understanding as it stands.

Quick edit:
Checking the 4 reviewed Arylic devices on the Electronics index, none of them have achieved a "Recommended" rating. It doesn't sound too promising, but I'll continue looking into it just in case...

 

[RandomEar]

Wasn't aware that Sure is Wondom - too bad Maybe something like a Dayton Audio KAB-250v4 plus one KAB-100Mv2 for the sub would be decent?

 

[This_guy_breaks_shit]

Wasn't aware that Sure is Wondom - too bad Maybe something like a Dayton Audio KAB-250v4 plus one KAB-100Mv2 for the sub would be decent?

I appreciate the suggestions, unfortunately Dayton Audio uses "rebadged" (and significantly marked up) Wondom amplifiers. The ones you listed can also be found on the Wondom website as the AA-JA32171V2 and AA-JA31182v2 respectively. As such, I expect their power output ratings to be for 10% THD (which, while not actually disclosed for these specific models, is typical for Wondom amps).

 

[RandomEar]

Damn, this is like whack-a-mole - it's whack-a-Wondom!

 

[pehu63]

WIthout looking any further, I would always shoot for a TPA3255 based amp. The low cost Aiyima get real good reviews. ALI has cheap boards and PSU's, like 25+20 dollar. Also, there are TPA3255 amps with PSU on one PCB, easy, with auxiliary +/- 12 volt power. But no standbye option, so must have a way to switch the mains externally. At higher cost, the Hypex UcD amps look good on ALI, specs _look_ slightly less good than the TPA3255.

At even lower cost, I would go for TPA3116/8 or TDA7492/8, but limited power compared to the TPA3255.

I built a streamer/amp for a friend. The TPA3255 broke down after a few years, replaced.

 

[dansan69]

You might have a look at the TinySine, they have a large variety of cheap boards