Trends Audio updates TA-10 Class-T Amp, adding a wider soundstage !

Posted by David Ho on Tuesday, January 30, 2007 - 09:32 am:

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ITOK Media Ltd's innovative Hi-Fi brand Trends Audio launched their new palm-top amplifier - Trends TA-10.1 Class-T Amp. It has upgraded the board to version 1.1 with bigger and better input and power capacitors. Meanwhile, Trends TA-10.1 applied much proprietary techniques into their circuit design, components matching, sound tuning and even the case grounding and shielding.

"We are proud to our new Trends TA-10.1. Now it has fuller bass, improved dynamics, better channel separation and a wider soundstage" the chief designer of Trends Audio, Ricky Leung said. New Trends TA-10.1 has upgraded the power filtering capacitor form 220uF ELNA electrolytic to 1500uF SANYO WG (high freq., low ESR) electrolytic and the input coupling capacitor is also upgraded. Trends TA-10.1 applied Tripath's class-T technology and use their unique audio techniques for this palm size amp. It has only 0.4 KG weight with aluminum case and its price is only one fifth to one tenth of the same quality amplifiers.

"As we believe, audiophile amplifier is no longer -- The Larger, the Heavier & the Hotter, the Best Sound," David Ho, the marketing director of Trends Audio said, "Trends TA-10.1 applied the well accept Tripath's class-T audio amplification technology. This integrated the class-D digital audio signal processing technique (PWM) with the Class-AB power amplification into a small IC. It has the mini-size, low heat advantages of Class-D amplifiers and also has the high fidelity sound quality of Class-AB amplifiers".

For circuit & function design improvement of Trends TA-10.1, there are much more thoughtful functions for audiophiles:

• Separated amp unit & power supply: It reduces the mutual interference and also let audiophiles freely to match different power supplies as they want. The 12V lead acid rechargeable battery should be a good alternative (battery provides purer DC than electric network).
• Separated analog ground and digital/power ground to reduce interference. The proper decoupling and shielding by the case further reduce interference. The purer sound and silent background achieved.
• Added the DC Offset tuning circuit (Left-bottom side of the picture) to effectively reduce the DC between the speaker terminals down to 1mV. It further improves the signal noise ratio.
• Simply reset the jumper to (Left side of the picture) skip the volume knob and related circuit to change the amplifier as pure power amplifier. You can then add a tube or transistor pre-amplifier before to increase the driving power and to tune the sound.

Trends TA-10 Class-T Amp. has received prize from audiophiles worldwide and they are looking for dealers to resell their products. The suggested retail price of Trends TA-10.1 is US$119 including the AC power adaptor and it may be the most competitively priced amplifiers on the market.