Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Smart TA 242 Amp- how many watts?

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Posted by Paul Vollmers (Member # 927) on 05-15-2010, 08:50 AM:

I recently picked up two Smart TA 242 Power Amps.
What is the watts power of this Amp?
I'm assuming 2 Chanel ea.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 05-15-2010, 09:51 AM:

120 watts into 8 ohms and about 180 into 4

Posted by Paul Vollmers (Member # 927) on 05-16-2010, 05:38 AM:

Thanks Gordon

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-16-2010, 08:21 AM:

Not a great amp. Probably MCM or equivalent. Oriental private label company source. Distortion is the same at all power levels, not good. About 1.5 to 2%. Louis

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 05-16-2010, 01:06 PM:

The module was originally designed by Hafler and copied by many manufacturers. Smart sold around 4000 units.

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 05-16-2010, 01:20 PM:

I was going to say they were Identical to the Hafler amps, I believe the manual and the schematics were the same also.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-16-2010, 03:39 PM:

Then the Hafler was a bad amp also. Put one on the bench and look at distortion. Louis

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 05-16-2010, 07:22 PM:

If it is the Hafler version, it's a Mosfet output like the Ashly and your favorite, or so I thought.

Posted by Oscar Neundorfer (Member # 458) on 05-16-2010, 09:01 PM:

Louis, I am not sure which amp you are talking about, but it is definitely not the TA242. It was and is an excellent amplifier, although not very high powered. But for its day, it was quite good. Whatever you measured that had such distortion was either a different amp, or you had a defective one.

The basic design was the Hafler, but the power supply was far and away better. It was even stable into 2 Ohms, although you would blow the speaker fuse if you pushed it too hard. I have tested it at 2 Ohms with an oversized fuse, and it worked perfectly fine.

There was the original TA240 which had a potted amplifier module of British origin which was a piece of junk. Later we changed the TA240 to the Hafler module. We should have changed the model number at the time but did not. Later there were some slight improvements (don't remember the details) and it became the TA242.

We sold thousands of these amps, and I daresay there are still plenty in service. The most common problem was the Molex connectors which gave some trouble with poor connections.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 05-16-2010, 10:14 PM:

Credibility, your name is Oscar! Many thanks. Louis

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 05-17-2010, 07:58 AM:

I always like the original Hafler amps and the smart TA242
the original used a module from england made by ILP that had issues mainly due to heat
The two issues that one can have is the DC offset null on the TA242 and the original Haflers will drift over time and needs to be adjusted occasionally the procedure is in the manual
The other issue is that the mosfets are no longer made for them
The later Haflers were crap [Smile]