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Smsl Q5 Pro Digital Stereo Amp


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Old Yesterday, 20:01
comtal
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Join Date: Nov 2011
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Hi all, As per title, has anyone used or have any knowledge of this amp.
The reason i ask is it seems to have all the inputs i need including an optical for connecting to a TV. It will be feeding bookshelf Hi-Fi speakers to improve the sound from the TV and to listen to Spotify through my laptop.
Will this be good enough as it is small enough to be unobtrusive. Thanks in advance.
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Old Today, 00:51
Chris Frost
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The thing about these little Tripath digital amps is they are very small as you already know, and as long as you stay within the performance envelope then the sound quality is good for the money. The catch is the power... or the lack of it.

The adverts are very clever. They quote some fairly respectable-looking figures: 2x40W @ 4 Ohm. A nice low-ish THD of around 0.4% A 20Hz-20kHz frequency range and thet all looks pretty good. What they're careful not to do is quote the RMS power output with both channels driven at 20Hz-20kHz in to an 8 Ohm load @ 0.4% THD. That would tell quite a different story. In short, there are ways to measure everything and come up with great looking numbers. For example, I could measure the MPG of your car and come up with a spectacular figure if I rolled it down a long steep hill on a trailing throttle. It wouldn't be a realistic number, but it would look great.

Without getting wrapped up in the maths what you need to do is take a large pinch of salt with the manufacturer's quoted figures. Divide any 8 Ohm power figure by three. That's what you're likely to get before the amp starts to get in to fairly high distortion figures. Let's be generous and say that your 2x20W amp is going to deliver a real world usable power figure of approx 7W per channel. If you want to coax any more power from it then you'll need a better wall wart transformer.

Is 7w per channel going to be enough for your speakers?
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Unread Today, 09:02
comtal
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Thank you Chris for the detailed information,it bears out what i pretty much knew at the back of my mind without having your knowledge for the nitty gritty.
The reason i posed the question was that i have just changed my TV and my previous set only had RCA outputs which suited me fine as my old Rotel amp has RCA inputs
The new TV has optical out but no optical in on the amp.
That is why i considered the SMSL as it has an optical in.
Would it just be better to purchase a digital to analogue converter and if so do you have any recommendations. Thank you again.
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Unread Today, 09:53
jmclaugh
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Would it just be better to purchase a digital to analogue converter.
Assuming you don't want a new amp then yes.
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Unread Today, 10:00
comtal
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Hi, Do any Hi-Fi amps at reasonable cost have optical inputs. My old Rotel still sounds good for my needs.
However i might be willing to change if so.Thanks
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