“One of our main goals at HiFiBerry is to offer great quality at a reasonable price. Bringing new products to the market is always fun, but we also enjoy making existing products even better. This time, we decided to put our hands on one of your favorite products: The HiFiBerry Amp,” the company states.
Essentially, the HiFiBerry AMP2 Board was designed to deliver a complete stereo audio system in combination with the Raspberry Pi - no need to add an external 5V power supply to the Raspberry Pi. The solution is now able to provide up to 60W power to drive a pair of 4 to 8 Ohm connected passive loudspeakers, which means pretty much every passive speaker on the market will work with the Amp2.
“You only need a single 12-24V power supply to power the Raspberry Pi and the Amp2. With 4 Ohm speakers, we recommend 12-18V. Higher operating voltages are only recommended with 8 Ohm speakers. However, even with 8 Ohm speakers an 18V power supply is the best choice in our opinion,” HiFiBerry explains. The speaker connections are the same as on the previous Amp+ board, and the Amp2 supports sample rates from 44.1-192kHz.
If the software used in the project doesn’t provide the Amp2 as an output option, users should use the HiFiBerry DAC+ driver as the Amp2 is basically a DAC+ with an integrated power stage. The operating voltage range increased to 12-24V allows projects with a wider range of power supplies. HiFiBerry warns nevertheless that users should be careful with using laptop chargers that exist in the market and that, although marked with an output voltage between 19-20V, actually generate a higher effective output voltage. HiFiBerry recommends users to confirm if the output voltage is stable and within the 12-24V limit under all conditions.
To make the new solution even more attractive, HiFiBerry not only improved the specifications but also decided to lower down the price as well. The AMP2 is available now on the www.hifiberry.us webshop and www.hifiberry.com for the European Union and other markets.
