Plaidophile

So, if you've been paying attention to the Mighty Blogosphere, you may have heard about the Sonic Impact Portable T-Amp, which a bunch of audiophiles have been raving about as being an amazingly good amp for only $30. I figured I'd give it a shot. I also bought a pair of Mission m31i speakers (which are also available in a cherry finish), as I'm still quite happy with the pair of Mission 731is I have in my bedroom (formerly the fronts on my main audio system, replaced with a set of Athena AS-B2 fronts, AS-B1 rears, and an AS-C1 center).

I am definitely not disappointed. These speakers are pretty darn good for their size, and the amp matches pretty well with them. It seems a little bit underpowered (it's only 15W per channel, after all) and at higher volumes the bass gets a bit thuddy, but as a small monitoring setup it performs quite well.

The imaging is particularly good, and is nearly on-par with my old Monsoon magneplanar speakers (which my dad currently has). The sound doesn't seem quite as good, though... I'm not sure whether the weakness in the sound comes from the speakers or the amp, though. I'd try my 731is on it but I'm lazy. :) And anyway the 731i needs a lot more power, what with being bigger and such. I think mostly it just needs some equalization.

Anyway, it's nice that now I don't have to listen to music exclusively on my Mac Mini if I don't want to use headphones, and that I don't have to use headphones when working on music.