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A Replacement For The Op-Amp |
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RichW
Senior Member Joined: 21 Jan 2013 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 1471 |
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Interesting topic.
Surface mount component technology has all but taken over the electronics manufacturing industry with some very small components now around. It must be a headache & a worry to rely on the continued availability of traditional through-hole ICs. |
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Majestic/Enigma, Accession MM & MC.
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Graham Slee
Admin Group Retired Joined: 11 Jan 2008 Location: South Yorkshire Status: Offline Points: 16298 |
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Since changes in electronic component manufacturing techniques started happening circa 2004 because of RoHS I became aware of a change in sound quality when using operational amplifiers in existing products as well as new designs. I initially put this down to the change in chemistry of the interconnections within them, but over the years I have not been able to prove this. Therefore there had to be an alternative explanation. I am now pretty sure it was due to the shrinking of chip size, in particular the use of (sub)miniaturised chips developed for surface mount in leaded (DIP) packages. It tends to make financial sense. I am also pretty sure some of the older DIP op-amps which were inherently RoHS compliant continued unchanged in manufacture but many are now heading for discontinuation in favour of their shrunken counterparts. The shrink alternatives exhibit a rather coarse sound signature, so for the benefit of our hearing I think it time to explore the alternatives to operational amplifiers, which means taking a discrete approach. One of the big problems here is the number of transistors that have been lost to progress, but there is still a healthy supply of some types where transistors must be used, such as in power amplifiers, and also in developing world products.
This topic is about my search for a suitable alternative and how that alternative might change how audio designs are configured, hopefully for the better. |
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That none should be able to buy or sell without a smartphone and the knowledge in how to use apps
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