TDA2030Pro – Auditioning with Hummingbird

TDA2030Pro with Hummingbird

The TDA2030Pro is meant to be installed inside a speaker cabinet as in active speakers. Unlike the BiAmpPro, the TDA2030Pro has no electronic crossover on board. It is strictly a power amplifier, therefore the speaker must have a passive crossover.

In the TDA2030Pro, the chip amp is supported by 2 current dumper transistors as seen in the schematic at the top. They ensure that there’s enough current when the TDA2030A is driving difficult loads.

I’ve never heard what a chip amp with current dumpers sound like. That’s why I’m eager for this audition. For a start, I’ll use a 8Ω woofer. Since the Hummingbird is already set up, I wired the DSA135-8 woofer to the TDA2030Pro. Connected my Balanced Out from my PC to the Balanced In of the TDA2030Pro, powered it up and proceeded to play some music. Remarkably, the TDA2030Pro sounded great.

The next day, I replaced the Hummingbird with the Sparrow-SB19. This speaker uses a 4Ω midwoofer, a SB Acoustics SB13PFC25-04. Played music for another day. The TDA2030Pro performed as expected. The current dumpers were transparent. No distortion were heard during playback.

Conclusion

The TDA2030Pro passed with flying colors. The sound is great. Pcb is small. No problem installing it inside a speaker cabinet. Idiot proof and cheap. My kind of amplifier.