Home > Consumer Reviews > TIC CORPORATION AMP10 Exterior Receiver Amplifier (Black Finish)

I was hopeful this would stand in for an outside receiver in the gagage, since it has am/fm and a pretty good number of input plugs, but I sent it back (very rare for me) because:
1. sound quality (SQ) was really poor; sounded like a loudness button was on: heavy on bass, not good for low listening levels, though it got better with louder volumes. but pretty crappy with my wharfedale bookshelf speakers. might be better with some bright speakers
2. the 12v transformer had a high-pitched hum that was pretty audible
3. the lcd display was very poor, no matter what the light condition. almost impossible to read.

in short, if you need a waterproof unit, this is prolly ok; and maybe it sounds good with the TIC rock or omni- style speakers, but it was definitely a 3 strikes you're out for me. definitely inferior to a garage-sale or goodwill receiver for much cheaper. I will say that the unit looked pretty rugged and the power attachment and other plug-ins seemed pretty weatherproof. maybe I just got a bad unit for SQ and the transformer hum?

Considering the price of this item it's not a bad deal. My main complaint is that it arrived with no instructions. Other than that the unit is as described. It is not overly powerful so don't attempt to drive more than a small pair of outdoor speakers with it. The tuner works well as do the inputs for outside sources. I did not however try out a microphone. I am using it on my patio and I will be making a small box for it to sit in. Although it is designed for outdoor use the power supply states that it should not be subject to wet conditions. If I had expected more I would have given it 2 stars so I am on the fence with that.

I purchased this product for use on a riverside dock. It is perfect. It is small and is sealed. The membrane buttons are waterproof. The sound quality is good and power is adequate. I connected 4 100 watt outdoor speakers and it drives them well. The unit comes with multiple cables for input. I was at first happy about that until the ipod cable developed a short very quickly. Oh well, I did not expect it to be included anyway. Considering the price, this is a great solution for poolside or dockside.

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.

I recently purchased this receiver for use in a storage/work building. I wanted something that would stand up to the extremes because this building is not heated or cooled. The receiver came with all cables need to hook up a CD player or an mp3 player. The receiver only took a few minutes to hook up. The fm tuner section of the receiver works fine. After hooking up the antenna (included with system) it scanned and picked up numerous station. The tuner sound was bassie and sounded just ok. I attached a CD player and a mp3 player to the system and they sounded very good. The amp puts out about 25 watts this is more that enough for my building. Overall a good receiver for such a cheap price.