First post; could really use good advice

[David86]

@markw:

No need to get rude. The reason I'm asking all of this is because I don't have a clue about higher/lower impedance and what is better specifically for this amp. I prefer to understand everything myself so I don't need to run to other people for every little thing that doesn't work out as planned. If that gets across to you as me being an annoying know-it-all, then sorry, but I guess it is a risk I'll have to take.

If someone can explain in clear english whether higher/lower impedance is better for this amp I'd really appreciate it (4/6/8 ohm???). Or is it simply not that important?

 

[David86]

@fuzz092888:

Very good to know there are affordable powered speakers in the same league as passive speakers + amp. If I had known that before I probably wouldn't have bothered getting an entry level amp, and just gone with these. I will definitely be checking them out. But I'm also starting to think it might just be easier to accept the noise and just tune down the volume while listening to electronic music ... There does not seem to be a quick fix. Another lesson learned I guess ...

 

[markw]

@davit,

I'm not being rude but it's not an impedance issue. You simply don't have enough power to drive many speakers, and the ones that you can drive are out of your league. Fuzz gave you good two good suggestions, neither of which include your toy amp.

You keep asking how to stop the burning yet refuse to take your hand off the stove. Until you accept what your real issue is you're gonna have problems.

but, anyhow, I'm done. Have a blast.

Yes. it's a cute little amp but it does have severe limitations. You seem to be having problems accepting that. ...and that IS annoying.

 

[ImcLoud]

I honestly think you have a power issue but its not a huge deal, a better amp for you may have been the lepai 2020, but you have what you have, you will be surprised at what adding even a 70hz high pass fmod to the system would do, the bass takes the lions share of your power, so when you no longer have to reproduce it with your 15w you will get a cleaner sound and more level... You said you were going to add a sub later anyway, so spend the $25 and get some fmods...
You have to be realistic about what your equipment will do, if you want LOUD music you will need to look into a decent sized amplifier and some full range speakers that can satisfy what you are looking for like cerwin vegas 215's and a crows xls1000... For a decent sounding system for classical music and more genres for that matter, the topping amps and a good set of bookshelfs can and does make people happy...

 

[David86]

Thank you ImcLoud, that is very useful information.
Then that is what I will do.

To be honest I have no idea what that even is or how it works, but I will start looking into fmod crossovers with a subwoofer tomorrow.
Many thanks for the great advice.

 

[ImcLoud]

All it does is installs in between your source and amplifier and stops the lows {under the specified value on a 12db slope} from going to the amp, so now your amps power isnt wasted reproducing bass, that power is now available for your mids and highs...

 

[David86]

That really does sound great. However is this still possible if I'm using the topping via the usb connection? Because if I switch to AUX I will lose the DAC function, and just be using my pc soundcard again. I'll look into that tomorrow. I'm off to bed now.

Good night everyone.

 

[ImcLoud]

nope cant do it with the dac, sorry, your stuck, lol.. start over..

 

[David86]

Ok that's what I thought. Do you think just adding a subwoofer without the FMOD crossovers would help the mids and highs from the speakers or is this pointless?

In any case, thanks for all the great info everyone, I really learned a lot, and will definitely take everything into consideration when I buy a new amp. I think it's just wonderful everybody here has been this helpful. At least now I understand where I went wrong, so I won't make the same mistake again.

 

[Ponzio]

David86 ... can you return your current Topping amp (15WPC)? If so, I would recommend spending another $30-$40 bucks and get the Topping TP60 Tripath Class T TA2022 Digital Amplifier ($208 at Amazon for 50WPC, per 8ohm speaker) and a male 3.5mm to male RCA jacks cable. Take your sound card/laptop built-in output with the 3.5mm cable to the Topping input. Regarding the speakers, it's totally subjective. You'll get a million opinions here of what people would purchase themselves at various price points. I have similar Onkyo speakers that came with my DR-UN7 micro-component system and after 3 days I replaced them with a pair of PSB Alpha-B1's. The sound improvement was five-fold ... to me. If I can make a personal recommendation, I would buy something on the used market, like your local Craig's List. I own 2 pairs of Athena AS-B2's that I bought for $70 a pair and they sounded great with the Onkyo but the wife wanted something more aesthetically pleasing for the location. While the PSB's have a better bottom end, I preferred the Athena's for the mid's and high's.

Good luck whatever you do.

 

[David86]

@Ponzio:

I had the same thought on returning the topping and going for something different, but I bought it on ebay and I don't think I can return it unless something is wrong with it (correct me if I'm wrong, never had to return anything on ebay). Now that I know that the main problem is the amp power rating, it would indeed seem logical to get the topping tp60 instead. I was actually thinking about this after all the comments about the power rating, but I would probably need to buy a separate USB DAC to get the same quality on vocals, right? And those don't seem to be very cheap either.

Maybe it would be better if I just stick a while with my current setup, and upgrade later on to a bit higher end Onkyo 2.1 receiver. I have read other topics on this forum where people recommend this receiver: Amazon.com: Onkyo TX-8255 Stereo Receiver: Electronics
Do you think this will give comparable quality on vocals as the topping? I don't seem to find any information on whether receivers have an integrated soundcard, or just use the computer's soundcard. Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated.

And thank you for the great speakers suggestion, but I'm not U.S. based and I haven't heard of Craig's list, but I will check if I can find one over here.

 

[Ponzio]

Yeah, you might have to eat the amp unless the seller also sells the other model and you can negotiate. DAC's to me are over-rated unless you don't have a decent receiver/amp with a good DAC chip processor built-in to feed them thru. I bought a FiiO DAC once and saw minimal improvement than what my Yamaha 110WPC AVR was already giving me. I think the TP60 would be more than enough to get good sound quality at your budget.

The Topping TP60 will definitely give you better sound quality than the $200 Onkyo. Receivers/amps don't have sound cards but have built-in processing chips to enhance the quality of the source material; be it cd's, mp3 files, etc. from your laptop/PC sound card.

 

[David86]

Really? That makes the Topping TP60 a lot more attractive to me if I don't have to buy another USB DAC simply to match the quality of the Topping TP32. And it will also produce better sound quality than the Onkyo TX-8255? What exactly is the rationale behind this? It might just have been a stupid assumption of mine, but I always thought receivers produced better sound? (Maybe I just assumed this because they are usually priced higher, but maybe that is due to the fact these also do video?)

If you say the Topping TP60 will without a doubt deliver better sound quality (not just volume) then both the Topping TP32 and the Okyo TX-8255 then I will definitely try to exhange it with the Ebay seller.

Many thanks for your input!

 

[Ponzio]

To be honest I'm going by hearsay on the site. I would reach out to ImcLoud, via a PM, since he owns a Topping TP60 and was raving about it. I believe it has something to do with the Class Type Amp that it's categorized under.

You could also still use the USB DAC if you fed it thru an audio switching box to the Topping unit input or direct from your existing DAC unit if it has a 3.5mm output (headphone out?). At that point you could get a male 3.5mm to RCA jacks cable and feed it to the Topping unit input.