Recommend a 4-channel amplifier?

[Hazenhart]

Longtime occasional passive reader, first time poster. Hope I have made this post in the correct forum.

I am looking for recommendations for a 4-channel power amplifier to drive two stereo channels of in-ceiling speakers. These are for casual/background listening in a contiguous bathroom/bedroom zone. Likely candidates for the in-ceiling speakers are 8 ohm nominal and 89 db sensitivity-ish. The amp will be fed by a WiiM Pro Plus via y-splitters. Individual gain trims on the channels would be nice, but not required. Small form factor would be nice but not required. Reliability is required. Target budget is <$500 total.
I have a similar 4-channel arrangement on my main floor using an Emotiva A4 amp that I am happy with, but this is not currently available, and it would be nice to have options that run cooler and smaller.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Fahzz]

If you're in the US, you are about to get a lot of recommendations for Buckeye Amps.

 

[Hazenhart]

Located in the US. The offerings on the Buckeye website are outside of my budget.

 

[Fahzz]

Check them out. Search Buckeye on the forum. They are very highly regarded and reasonably priced.

 

[jhaider]

QSC SPA4-100 is a decent passive (no DSP) option. Compact and cool running; only quirk is common ground on channel pairs. (5-gang Phoenix connector.) We used one for height channels in an immersive setup for a while. (I should send it to Amir to review out of curiosity.) Often appear very inexpensively used.

If you want more power or finer control, the Ashly (Blaze/Pascal OEM) amp reviewed here a few months ago is a great choice. Also has digital input, which would be really nice with a WiiM streamer. That would probably be my first choice.

While more expensive, Powersoft Mezzo 604 is more powerful still. We use a couple of those for zone speakers, and they work very well.

Parasound has a compact 4-channel amp as well. Model no. escapes me right now. Z450 maybe? Less power than all of the above but has simple RCA inputs.

Hypex is silly for this application, IMO.

 

[kyuu]

I would think your best bet is to just use a stereo amplifier and drive two speakers off each channel in series, feeding a mono signal to both channels. In-ceiling background music is an undemanding use case and won't benefit from stereo.

 

[3eaudio]

one option from us used TPA325x series

Mulit-channel Amp,Which one you would like to own?

Hi Amigoes We are preparing to build a multi-channel amp. Wanna know which model is more popular for users? If you are interested, please help us get your vote. Leverage A5(TPA3251),A7(TPA3255) PFFB design with built-in GaN Power supply Pure-Amplifier without volume control, configurable...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Hazenhart]

Check them out. Search Buckeye on the forum. They are very highly regarded and reasonably priced.

I do like the idea of supporting a respected US-based company, and I could probably convince myself that the NCx252MP 4-channel is worth expanding my budget. I could not find any reviews on this amp, nor anything based on the NCx252MP. I did make the mistake of poking around the "Class D long term reliability" thread. Anybody here have any input?

 

[Head_Unit]

Individual gain trims on the channels would be nice

Do you mean to balance one pair versus the other, in what, different rooms? Or you also want balance to control the gain of each single speaker?
- Presuming from the description you are not playing very loud, I used this
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CJZGT6H?th=1
as a power amp and it was fine. Just turned the volume knob up to like 2 o'clock as a gain setting, no hiss heard into the fairly sensitive JBL Control X. Reliability ah like 5 years so far, always on.
- I presume you don't object to two stereo amplifiers. It does give you independent gain that way.

 

[Head_Unit]

QSC SPA4-100...I should send it to Amir to review out of curiosity.

YES

 

[Joe Smith]

I do like the idea of supporting a respected US-based company, and I could probably convince myself that the NCx252MP 4-channel is worth expanding my budget. I could not find any reviews on this amp, nor anything based on the NCx252MP. I did make the mistake of poking around the "Class D long term reliability" thread. Anybody here have any input?

Most of us here - not all - think class D amps being are likely to have decent longevity (10+ years). But, the Hypex and Purifi modules have not been around that long, the track record is still fairly short. And, of course, how hard you drive them and how many hours a day is going to affect the amp. The smaller overseas amps (Fosi, Aiyima, etc.) also unknown but probably will have 5-10 year life, again depending on how hard they are used.

I think the Hypex amps from Buckeye would be well suited to your need, if you can work them into your budget. Buckeye may have additional info with regard to any known longevity data.

 

[kyuu]

I'm unclear why everyone keeps trying to push Buckeye; Buckeye is great, but overkill for this use case. Also, the cheapest 4-channel option is twice the stated maximum budget.

If the OP doesn't already have the Wiim Pro Plus, I'd recommend just saving the money on that and putting it towards getting two Wiim Amps. You can set Wiim products into groups in the app so they synchronize for multi-room audio.

 

[john61ct]

Wiim Amps synching is not consistent enough for same room or in close- adjoining spaces.

I completely agree everyone's going audiophool
overkill for the budget and use case, exception Head_Unit

One Wiim streamer feeding two inexpensive TPA-3255 based power-amps, half the price of the $500 budget set. So buy 4x stereo units to get desired longevity - say 10 years? that's the one expensive wildcard.

Even 3e's currently shipping, fully assembled units are overkill IMO but happy to be corrected, might be "better than" that AIYIMA A07 at double the price?

 

[Hazenhart]

Thanks for these options. Two stereo amps would work. Yeah, I'm looking to provide a bit of volume balance between the stereo pairs, and two stereo amps with volume control would do the trick. I will look at the Aiyima and 3e options.

 

[Everett T]

This fits the budget and is 4 channels.
Art 4 channel

 

[jhaider]

. But, the Hypex and Purifi modules have not been around that long, the track record is still fairly short.

I have a ProJect Amp Box SE (Hypex UcD180 modules) that I bought around the time of the Bush economic crash, so they’ve been around for while now.

 

[john61ct]

This fits the budget and is 4 channels.
Art 4 channel

Balanced / pro inputs, would need to short negative signal to ground or put another DAC in between to get full gain

Maybe NP just saying

 

[Everett T]

Balanced / pro inputs, would need to short negative signal to ground or put another DAC in between to get full gain

Maybe NP just saying

It has a ground short/lift switch.

 

[kyuu]

There's also this OSD 4-channel amp with RCA inputs. No convenient volume knobs, but each channel does have adjustable gain.

 

[john61ct]

The HPF option caught my eye, but only available for one pair after putting in bridged (mono) mode?

To me only LPF makes sense there for mono sub.

Oh well