the t.amp TA50

I used this TA50 to replace the sound amplifier in a coffee/cafe shop. The old amplifier was big and complicated, a very good 70 watt stereo (2 x 35 watts) & plenty loud enough to rock out our main street through good quality PA speakers, which it did all through the summer.

This TA50 is a "one knob" & a couple of switches amp, simple enough and small enough to make more space for the new "big" coffee machine on the shelves behind the counter. It has a couple of nice brackets to attach it under (or over) shelves or on the wall. Looks good too.

The sound from this amp (40 watts stereo) 2 x 20 watts, is clean & smooth, without distortion (if fed sensibly), not too much treble or not too much bass (no on board EQ), but still plenty loud enough to be heard on the terraces outside as before.

The cafe belongs to my Mrs, she plays classical/piano mp3 music from her lap top into the TA50, sounds nice, pleasant, clean, using the lap top's EQ. When she is away and I am behind the bar, the classical music turns to heavy rock & the volume knob on the TA50 gets turned well up, it handles this surprisingly good too.

I do sound for bands @ weekends and (I think) I understand sound & music pretty well, we (the band) use up to 3 KW of sound at festivals, This is why I appreciate the little TA 50 & its sound capabilities.

?50 ? I'm very happy with the results.

I'm running a pair of Dali Oberon On-Wall speakers with this. They're not cheap, so I wanted a quality amplifier that was going to do them justice, while not damaging them from on/off pops/thumps or under-power distortion. Thankfully this runs them effortlessly to very loud volumes with no audible distortion.

My second biggest concern was idle background hiss, which would be an issue in my 'always-on' use case. However I'm pleased to say there is very little of this. You'd need to have your ear right up to the driver to hear it, so while it could be quieter (i.e. silent), I'm satisfied in this regard.

The general quality of audio seems to be high. I noticed no obvious defects in frequency response. Bass has satisfying impact.

The auto-off feature is great one for my use case; though I don't see why it's set to 15 minutes, when it could easily have been 15 seconds. There is no on/off thump or pop whatsoever, so a more aggressive standby mode would have been welcome.

I've not needed to use the limiter, but it is a welcome feature.

What really surprised me was the high quality of the case, switchgear and power supply. All are top-notch and put some HiFi equipment to shame. The volume pot is rock solid with no wobble. The case is a lovely Matt black with a durable finish. The supplied mounting brackets are solid. The power supply is a quality EU unit and the UK adapter provided seems to be a decent one. The supplied plug-in speaker terminal makes connection easy.

I highly recommend this amplifier.