Closer Examination

This little amplifier looks really cute. It is the first amp I have ever owned were a woman made a positive comment about its design. It definitely looks far less geeky than the other amps I own. The design looks just like a dog bone and it is made from a really thick kind of silica gel. It actually feels quite soft to touch. The silica gel design is definitely unique and it is sort of durable, however, it does create some special problems, for example when you insert a mini-jack you have to be very careful that it goes all the way in. The problem is that when you push the jack in, the circuitry board is forced further to the other side making it hard to “feel “ if it is in place.


One of the things that surprised me a bit was the fact that this little amp gets charged via a mini-USB plug. That is quite nice because you can run and charge it off your computer. When you plug in the mini-USB the unit immediately begins to charge its internal Li-ion battery. The Colors has a small red LED that indicates that it is charging. Travagans claim that the unit can do up to 24 hours on one recharge. I was only able to run 14-19 hours throughout my tests, however, these tests were done with quite demanding headphones at normal listening levels. I am sure if you hook this amp up with a pair of efficient headphones you could achieve 24 hours. 19 hours is still a lot from such a small amp and it is really good once you consider that it was running non-stop powering different Yuin and Head-Direct earphones and a pair of Grado SR-60s. The battery life is definitely way above average, I only get 10 hours of battery life when using my Go-Vibe V6 portable amp and even less with my HeadRoom BitHead.


The input and output on the Colors look quite alike. The only noticeable difference if you are in a hurry is that the output has a larger opening. The opening around the output jack is so that you can pull the PCB out of the silica casing. Since there is no on/off switch the amp turns on the second you insert anything into the output jack. This is both a pro and a con in my opinion, it is smart that the unit turns off automatically, but bad in the sense that you cannot leave the jack in. Is it a smart feature? In some ways yes because you cannot "forget" to turn it off once you disassemble your portable rig, however, it deprives you of the option of leaving your rig together without draining the amp’s battery.


There is a small "Travagans" logo on the top of the amp.


Once you pull the PCB out of the rubber casing you can see all of the amping goodness. What amazed me was how much stuff was crammed on such a small piece of PCB. In comparison to my Go-Vibe the density of components is much higher on the Colors. The compact design is quite a feat of engineering.


This little amp is powered by a lithium-ion battery, which is quite nice because it makes it faster to charge and has a better capacity compared to its size than normal batteries. This does of course bring up a couple of problems, what to do when the battery decides to die on you. You have to options either to try and get one of similar capacity and voltage or simply buy a new Colors amp, since the unit is fairly cheap from Travagan's web shop for me the choice would be simple.


The back side of the of PCB is covered by some anti EMI/EMC paper to reduce interference.