Griffin 20 Digital Audio Amplifier Review: Re-Use Those Old Speakers

|
, , ,

Has your spouse been bugging you to get those speakers you’ve been holding on to thrown in the garbage? You know, the ones you never use because they’re old school red and black wires and you have a new smartphone dock somewhere that plays music. You know, the ones that could break that smartphone dock in two if only they had the chance to ring and sing again. Well Griffin wants you to use those speakers again with the Griffin 20 Digital Audio Amplifier.

Griffin_20_1

Specifications

    Amplifier

  • Class D Stereo Amplifier: TI PurePath™
  • Input: S/PDIF optical, TOSLINK connector and 3.5 mm adapter (included)
  • Outputs: left & right channel connectors; RCA subwoofer connector
  • Sensitivity: -9.4 dBFS for 20 watts (volume control set to max)
  • AC Power: 100 to 240 VAC @ 50/60 Hz
    Bluetooth Wireless Audio

  • Bluetooth Specification Version: Bluetooth v3.0 + EDR
  • Output Format: S/PDIF digital stream
  • Supported Digital Audio Codecs: AAC, aptX
  • Range: 10 meters
    Speaker Output

  • Power: 20 watts per channel into 8 ohms @ 0.08% THD, both channels driven
  • Frequency response: 20 Hz – 20 kHz, +0, -0.34 dB
  • Signal-to-Noise ratio: 95 dB
  • Crosstalk: -71 dB
    Subwoofer Output

  • Auto-switching when powered subwoofer is detected
  • Output Level: line-level output (1 V RMS nominal; 2 V RMS max.)
  • High-pass filter: 80 Hz 4TH order Linkwitz-Riley applied to L+R channels
  • Low-pass filter: 80 Hz 4TH order Linkwitz-Riley applied to subwoofer output

Design

With a modern, clean, slick, and minimal design the Griffin 20 is a pleasure to look at, even your better half won’t balk at this design. The Griffin 20 is very sturdy and well built, there is some weight to this thing and it screams premium quality. Constructed of both aluminum and plastic the unit isn’t that large but the box will fool you into thinking it’s huge. There is one giant knob on the top which you will use to control your volume and around back you have the power cable port, L/R audio inputs, optical in and subwoofer out. It’s all pretty minimal as this thing is just a 20 watt amp with a volume control. Overall the design is wonderful to look at and should compliment any home decor.

HOW TO: Change system date in OS X ...
HOW TO: Change system date in OS X from Terminal

Griffin_20_2

Function

Apple likes to use the phrase, “it just works” a lot in their marketing strategy and that’s exactly what the Griffin 20 does, it just works. Setup is a breeze, just plug in your old speakers (left and right channels, black and red wires), then your subwoofer and you’re done. The optical input connects to any device with optical output like a cable box, Apple TV or other streaming device. The Griffin 20 also connects to your iPhone or Android over Bluetooth allowing the amp and speakers to be used to listen to music from all your Bluetooth connected devices. Once you have this setup, and believe me it is dead simple, you can just enjoy your entertainment like you would any other Bluetooth speaker. Typical range is around 30-33 feet for Bluetooth, that’s just an industry standard at this point. Overall the Griffin 20 does exactly what it’s made to do and it won’t disappoint.

Value

If you’re holding on to some nice speakers that have served you well and really have high quality sound, you cannot go wrong with the Griffin 20 amp. For $149 you have re-purposed your awesome sounding stacks for less than it would cost to buy a whole new Bluetooth enabled set of speakers. If you don’t have any speakers but still want this amp, Griffin does bundle some speakers with the amp at an extra cost, check out the website for that.

Wrap Up

Highly recommended for those of you with high quality older speakers laying around that deserve to be heard again. At $149 the Griffin 20 is the resurrector of sound at a reasonable price.

[rwp-review id=”0″]

Last Updated on November 27, 2018.

Previous

Google-Twitter Mobile Deal Extends To Desktop

ASUS ZenFone 2 Deluxe Special Edition Will Have 256GB Of Storage Space

Next

Latest Articles

Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap