Upgrading from a Sonic Impact T-amp, what are my options?

[Peteruk]

Hey all,

Not long ago, after recomendations on here, I bought and set-up the following system:

Mission M72
M-Audio 2496 Sound Card
Sonic T 5006 Amp
Atacama Nexus 6 Speaker Stands
2 x 2.5m QED Silver Anniversary XT
van den Hul The Name interconnect

Now so far, I have been very happy with the system. After re-positioning and filling the stands with sand, I have improved the initial problem of absent bass. The connections on the T-amp are still rather dodgy, and I had to solder the QED cable to small ends so they fit in. Many elastic bands are also wrapped round it, to stop the RCA to 3.5mm adapter unplugging itself.

Now however, I'm looking to see if there're any other T-amps at a slightly higher price range that I could upgrade to. My main source of inspiration for this has been: http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/tripath_amps_e.html which showed several other T-amps being in fierce competition with the SI. My Hifi system does get out and about quite a lot, so portability is important. I'd imagine if I switched from the SI, particularly to something more powerful, I'd have to play around with a car battery for power on the move...

I haven't really got the money to upgrade right now, but I'm considering my options. Basically the questions in this thread are:

1. What do you think is the next step up for my system, particularly in amplification?
2. Have you had any experience with any of the other t-amps featured in the review?
3. For portable amplification, what are you experiences? I'm interested to know what the highest watt T-amps there are around. The 30w of the SI doesn't quite cut it sometimes, especially as it distorts over about 65% volume.

Thanks to all who post

[Mr_Sukebe]

I had a sonic-T, really wasn't that impressed, though they're clearly amazing for the cost.

The best mod I've seen involved a replacement power supply, reboxed, removal of the volume control (particularly nasty I understand), internal rewiring and new caps.
The chap who did it spent around £100 on the mods and did think that it was a good step up. The only problem was that he found a fairly cheap valve amp for only £200 which he thought blew the Sonic T out of the water.

My personal view is that it's not worth the effort, and that you should go look around for other decent s/h bargains.