TIC CORPORATION AMP10 Exterior Receiver Amplifier (Black Finish) Review

The good

- they brought it in a cheap price point
- It's weather resistant.
- It has no shortage of inputs (3 separate stereo in's aside from radio)
- It has enough power to make the rock speakers in your backyard noticable to your neighbors (not that that's a plus). Just saying it has enough power output for patio speakers.
- It remembers 20 or 30 channels, I forget how many because...
(see "the bad")
- LARGE SELLING POINT: You are to a large degree more protected from shocks & possible electrocution due to this running on 12V from a 110V adapter which you can shield / protect / encase / hide (choose your method). Your mileage may vary - you have to use some intelligence about protecting the transformer when setting it up.

The bad

- The sound quality is LOW FI at best. If you'd like some clear treble or clarity in general - look elsewhere. It feels like everything is rolled off over 4 or 6Khz. Possibly due to inexpensive op amps. When listening you're always longing for some ..less..mush I guess. Yeah you can acclimatize to it but it's not satisfying.
- The manual is terse to the point of being pitiful because..
- You'll go insane trying to store the FM presets with the manual they give you.

- TIP: You GOTTA find their website and buried on the site is a * slightly * improved manual which will give you a fighting chance to correctly program the radio presets.

So...it's sort of a stopgap measure - I'm keeping it but I'm not exactly thrilled with it. My wish for this company is they would charge another 40 dollars for this and upgrade the sound quality to say Teac level - presentable / decent commercial mid-fi. Either that or would Teac or Sherwood, etc get on board and do this themselves? Probably not as it's such a niche market. Maybe some of the boat marinas sell upscale weatherized (grundig??) systems. Didn't have time to look for that. I think weatherized stereo receivers are hard to find.

Buy it here now!