Any hobby will inevitably contain a subset of practitioners who take things to the extreme and hifi is no exception. To the layman the audiophile is a person who is obsessed with the journey to musical nirvana and will stop at no expense to get there. Some magazine reviewers make favourable comments on $500 mains cables (I kid you not) while others wax lyrical over loudspeakers that cost more than your average car.

So what has this to do with the Sonic Impact T-amp? Well nothing actually, for this device costs a staggeringly little $30. What’s impressive is that the aforementioned audiophiles hold it in the same regard as the other, rather more expensive kit in their collections.

Joking aside, the amplifier does make just as much difference to the quality of the sound as the speakers do but it’s pretty unusual to see anything at this price range produce more than white noise. This guy plugged the T-amp into his $30,000 stereo system to see what it could do - and came away impressed, which says something.

I reckon you could do worse if you’re looking for something to power an ipod/speaker combo. More info from the Sonic Impact website.