New Audio Equipment from Scythe

[Shinigami]

Hello Folks,

We just received the first production sample of our new “KamaBay AMP” for the 5.25” Bay use (internal) or external use. This item was first shown at this year’s CeBIT 2007 in Hannover, Germany. We are expecting to deliver this item during the Christmas Season, but we took a couple of pictures to give you a short sneak preview about this product.

It can be used with MP3, CD Players, computers, and game consoles. The power IC “YDA-138(D-3)” is used for this item with a cooperation with Yamaha. “Kama Bay AMP” is the name for this new product. S/N Ratio is 103dB, and it is designed for 2 stereo channels (analog input). Further details and specifications will be announced as our official press release. We plan to introduce some useful DIY information regarding this item and audio sound improvement soon – stay tuned!

Please also feel free to register and participate in the voting regarding this new product.

Greetings,
Scythe Press Team

[tacc]

what's the improvement from 5.1, 7.1 sounds?
Are the improvement from those stated above clearly visible? or should i say "hear-able"?
if so how 'clear' does it get?

[Shinigami]

Hi tacc,

I am not sure, what you mean,sorry. The 5.1 and 7.1 has more speakers. Could you re-define the questions??

Thanks,
Andy

[tacc]

ok lets stay away from the 5.1 7.1 then,
Lets say i used an mp3 player with it.
How much of an improvement is it compared with just 'only' the mp3 player.

[Oli]

I still do not get the use of this. Scythe is not a manufacturer of audio equipment AFAIK!?

At the moment my interpretation of this device is:

It functions as amp for stereo signals. Ok. But what is the sense behind this? You can raise the volume above the limit your soundcard or player is offering. But which speakers should be connected to this amp?

The enthusiastic PC users are using an active speaker system with integrated amp anyway - so no use for them. But who is using a passive stereo speaker system and wants so much power? And the analogue output of most pc soundcards is so poor that connecting with digital SPDIF is the better way.

As far as I can see on the pictures it's just for adjusting the volume. There is no possibility of chnaging sound like treble and bass. Not exactly my definition of amp...

Perhaps I just do not understand the idea behind this product and why Scythe must produce such a thing - that could be the reason for my negative judgement. Please provide more information!


Bye Oliver

[Shinigami]

Hi Oliver,

Scythe will not stop and just make same type of product, this is normal way of development of a company. So for the future there will be more items, that will not be cooler related. That does not mean that we will be less enthusiastic about cooling though!

The point is, that the high end AMPs are way more expansive compared to our version, which is most likely the smallest AMP on market. Sop basically this AMP will cost around 60 to 70€ which is cheap for this quality, and we will show it in magazine etc. It won't be an easy way, but we are confident that we can set new a new standard for price/performance ratio in the audio market with this and upcoming products.

Your active speaker part is not exactly how it is. TEUFEL is selling their systems for a big bunch of money, but people sometimes have some analog (DEassiv) speakers laying around or can just buy these for not a big amount or even make his own. We want to support audio DIY a bit more and this AMP will be a way to give everyone the chance to have better sound with his speakers for all kind of use, MP3 or PC, just use the normal Jack to connect.

I have one running at home for testing and I will post something regarding this in the next days. The sound is really a lot better compared to my normal active speakers, so I won't go back for sure.

Greets,
Andy

[Oli]

Some thoughts - I'm devils advocate right now - no hard feelings, please:

- no use for people with active speaker systems (these got internal amps)
- source needs to supply a good analog signal - in other words: amplifying a poor signal won't improve its quality!
- people investing in soundcards with excellent analog output will buy a full-featured amp
- is this amps powerful enough to support these passive speakers "lying around"?
- only 2.0 analog stereo, PC enthusiasts often want subwoofer support

I really only see an advantage for people interested in connecting MP3 players to a pair of speakers "lying around". Cause everyone else who wants to implement thier MP3 player into their Hifi or home cinema system already has a full-featured amp to connect the player to.

Especially based on the actually used sound formats that are pushed by the industry I am convinced that only digital output/input is the future. I am using quadral MM220 2.1 speaker system with digital optical input - no more lousy 3,5mm jacks and poor sound quality from PC soundcard!

There may be customers for this but at the moment I can hardly imagine the circumstances under which one would prefere the Kama bay amp.


Bye Oliver

[ZeD]

This product may not be as much computer related (allthough the 5.25" bay mounting option is a very cool feature indeed) , but if it can deliver high quality sound and power for a faction of the money it is interesting nevertheless.

You can integrate it in (mount it on) a set of good quality passive speakers (like i did with my current set) and create your own active speakers that sound WAY better than anything you could find to buy out there , you could place it in your bedroom with your mp3 player for music listening etc .

If it's small , cheap and good sounding/powerfull i like it .

A question : is the power supply in the same casing or is it external ? if external could you post a pic or two alongside the main unit for size comparison ?

[Shinigami]

Hi there!

I hope you had a nice weekend.

@Oliver:
You can actually connect also a subwoofer to the amp, it worked fine on CeBIT 2007 and we run it here like that w/o any issues. In fact there will be people who are into audio and they most likely not go for this solution, becasue they want to buy expansive gears. As mentioned before, our target is entry-level and those could get a decent and nice sounding audio set for around 200-300€ including our amp. We will publish some more information about this very soon, most likely I will be able to do that next week when I am back from Spain. Furthermore I would agree on what ZeD said.

@ZeD:



The unit is external, as you can see, to not influence the sound, the adapter is external. I added a detailed view of the specs for your information. The retail price for the unit will be around 60€ based on my suggestions at this moment. Some reviews will be published soon as well, working on this part at this moment.

Greetings,
Andy

[Vanseb]

Hello,

In my case, this amp is a great idea to connect my computer to a pair of old HiFi speakers, to recycle them.
The price is not excessive, design is sober.

Excellent idea