Pro-audio is one place I expect to find balance of component performance. Because with so many competitors as well as using measured numbers to reflect performance, it is about the best performance for the same money, at least on paper. And to do that, bottlenecks must be minimized, and the performance of each part matches the performance of the rest.
With so many gainclones being used, this makes me wonder about the performance of T-amps and such.
Gainclones aren't bad, in fact they perform very well for the price.
And that is actually the problem. Look at the number of LM3886 being used. And usually two of them are used for a bi-amp configuration.
And take a look at the amplifiers themselves:
(Source: Everywhere on the internet, I just visited webpages that were given to me by Google Image Search, if you demand credit or need it removed just inform me)
M-Audio BM5A
Mackie HR824
Yamaha HS80M
ESI nEar05
Tannoy Reveal 5A
Genelec 8050A
Behringer B2031A
I could go on forever, but you should get the idea already. Even if we ignore the complicated preamp section, looking at the power amp sections themselves, well they are not fancy with multi-colored components and "magic materials" or what the ****s, but they certainly are no slouch either. Well you can see some amps being bigger than others due to price differences of the speakers, and some amps more worth the money than others, but in general, a 2xLM3886 amp, complete with parts of those size, costs quite a bit already materials alone.
I don't expect cheap gainclone kits to do any better. Or even the same, those cheap kits using cheaper or fake chips and tiny capacitors.
And that is the problem. If pro-audio designers are using this quality of gainclones with their $300-1000 active speakers, then passives speakers in the $300-1000 range should demand even better amplifiers.
And Creative T20 Series II and T40 using TPA3123D2 and TDA8932 respectively tells more about the value of these amps.
Now I'm doubting that <$100 amps are sufficient.
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