drumerbob

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
This little box rox!!! It will power my LS7s (barely) which surprised me. Prefers the Clements 106s( reworked). with new drivers and X over change. Don.t forget to reset the bias after burn in. I just sit and shake my head at the sound. Detailed Warm.... im still waiting for the thing to blow up and say FU. LOL
Owned... HH Scott, Quad 11, Dayton Wright

StevenSurprenant

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5, 1.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00 from Audiomagnus

Summary:
Here's the deal with these amps...

You cannot use them with inefficient speakers. For instance, I tried them with my Magnepans and they sounded great, but they wouldn't play very loud without distorting. Magnepan's need a good amount of power and this little amp is too small. That's what you have to take into account if you decide to buy this amp.

I tried this amp on four different speakers and other than the Maggies, they played plenty loud, louder than I care to listen.

I now use them on my DIY home brew speakers which consists of Newform tweeters and 4 SEAS exel woofers. I have these speakers bi-amped through an electronic crossover and into two on these amps. In case you were wondering, I am horizontally bi-amping them, I was vertically bi-amping them, but I think horizontal sounds a little better and gives me the ability to adjust the tweeter level up for low volume listening at night.

So, how do they sound?

Glorious! They are champs at clarity and soundstaging.

My old system used a Mark Levinson 331 amp, which was good, but doesn't hold a candle to this little amp. To put this in perspective, the ML cost about $5,000, the Trends T-amp cost a little over $200. I sold the ML and would not take the ML back in even trade.

This doesn't meant the ML is a bad amp. It's a great amp, but in my system, the Trends is much better. I know that sounds crazy, but that's the way it is.

I get goose bumps when I listen to my system now. The sound is so good that I stopped going to these highend stores looking for the holy grail of sound.

I have heard systems that are better than mine, but it is rare, very rare. Of course, my system is not perfect and some systems I listen to are better in one area or another, but overall, I would not trade this for them.

This little amp is fantastic at calrity soundstaging, imaging, warmth, and whatever other term I can think of. Sure, there is better, but at what price?

The bottom line is that with the right speakers, this amp is hard to beat at any price.

I believe that if you listen at moderate levels this amp will work with most speakers, or if you use very efficient speakers (95db and above) then it will shake you walls.

My listening room is 16 foot by 19 foot, my speakers are about 90db efficient and I bi-amp through an electronic crossover into two of these amps, so I am getting a little more mileage from these amps and they play way too loud if I turn it up too much..

One thing I should point out is that they can use a pre-amp because they have passive attenuators and sometimes the signal from the source is too low to get the volume I need.

Well anyway, I am one happy camper!

The really cool thing is that for the money I have invested in my system (about $1,500 to $2,000) it is not at all embarrassed in the presence of mega buck systems.

I'm just so full of myself...LOL

But really, I'm just so excited with level of quality I have been fortunate to attain at such a low cost.

My last system cost me $15,000 and while I loved it, I like this system even more.

I think that says it all!

Miche

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Value Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Visitors rate this review
1.50 of 5, 2.00 votes

Price Paid:  $190.00 from Obad imports

Summary:
I received this little amplifier on September the 12th.

Immediately upon receiving it. I carefully installed it. So cute, so small. Finish is OK!

Featherlightweight. Click I start it up. HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. A diffuse hiss.

I tell myself, I suppose it will diminish when warmed-up.

I put a CD increase the volume to 1/3. Besides the noise, the sound is very very nice. I would say more agreable than my Cambridge 640A. More punch, beefier bass extension, more precise mid and treble. But.. on soft passages, HISSSSSS like a badly pressed vinyl record. So mine had this problem which is not the case of all the owners' amplifiers.

The Cambridge is noise free, no noise, silent, still vey musical, but the Trends despite this problem nobody could stand, is very natural, very honest.

Quality check should be improved from Trends manufacturer.

Strengths:


Musicality. transparence, surprising punch and power for 5 clean watts per channel.

Small size, runs cool, doesn't heat at all. Sense of correctness, cohesiveness.

Weaknesses:
In my sample. Big hiss that distract the listener to really appreciate the music and the SILENCE BETWEEN NOTES.

Similar Products Used:


Cambridge 640 A

Price Paid:  $180.00 from t'internet

Summary:
Wow, just out the box, not properly run in and already it's kicking my musical fidelity xa100r's arse. Detail astonishing for the price, running on monster sized (esp in comparison to this little giant slayer) kef 104.2's, which are about 92db efficiency.
I just know that my other amps are now going on ebay - got to buy another 10.1
for my planar 3.
Again repeat - detail like this shouldn't, but thank god is..... available at this price

Strengths:
Detail, midrange very strong, soundstaging

Weaknesses:
Only one input

Similar Products Used:
Many and varied over the years, all costing 10x this at least

Price Paid:  $140.00 from audiomagus.com

Summary:
Disregard the blatantly bogus smear-review by "Bubbles"---what a joke! Sounds like some high-end audio dealer who's scared sh*tless by all the audiophile-quality gear coming out these days with bargain basement price, such as this. I would be too if my livelihood depended on it, heh. But maybe I wouldn't sound so bitter and hysterical and hopelessly one-sided, come on!

Strengths:
The price, obviously...Trends Audio could probably put this little amp inside a bigger more luxurious-looking box and added an extra zero after the pricetag and still do quite well!

Gorgeous sound, truly the best of both worlds: the warmth and naturalness of analog amplification, with the clarity and zero noise floor of digital. Absolutely no listening fatigue. Detail, rhythm, pacing, timing, soundstage, imaging...it's all there more or less. Surprisingly strong bass, a huge improvement over the original $30 Sonic Impact T-Amp. The midrange is delicious, voices (esp. female ones) and piano sound amazing...attack and decay is easily in the same league as AB amps costing over $1000. Treble is not as warm and rolled off as with a tube amp, but quite refined nonetheless. Lots of air between instruments, handles complex as well as simple compositions well.

Weaknesses:
If you have 4 ohm speakers with low (e.g. 84db) sensitivity then yeah, this is not a great idea. I'm running mine on middle-of-the-road, 89db sensitivity bookshelves and have no problem hitting fairly loud (not eardrum-blasting, but still pretty rockin' loud) SPLs of around 80db in a medium sized room. And of course it's a pretty bare bones amp, if you have more than one source spend another eighty bucks or so on the T-Preamp (google it).

Similar Products Used:
NAD c272 and c162
Panasonic sa-xr55
Rega Mira
Marantz PM7200
Sonic Impact T-Amp