But now the interesting story follows - I have bought two of these /greedy/ which are on their way here - will inform the society after the check up.
TDA1541 Dual 16-bit DAC BY PHIL | eBay
TDA1541 Dual 16-bit DAC BY PHIL | eBay
That is a tda1541 non A chip. I have two that I bought about 15 years ago and apart from the date code, they look identical to the one in your picture.
The Made in Taiwan tda1541a in your other post is probably a good sounding chip. Pedja Rogic has mentioned that apart from the S2 version, the 1998 Made in Taiwan tda is the best sounding chip and also chips made in the late 90s often perform better than older chips.
TDA1541A grades and series - Audial online topic
Attachments
The quoted article fails to mention the TDA1541 S.
This selected version exists ... I have 2 in OEM boards from Marantz.
Andy
Hi I have sold a lot of those 1998 Taiwan chips (bought a box with 375 pieces from Philips then) and they are better than many old European made TDA chips. By coincidence I got 4 of those back last week and I will be building a TDA1541A DAC again just for comparison with recent chips.
In the past I used these a lot and they are really good. So good that I sold all my other TDA1541A versions including the various S1 chips en kept the Taiwan chips. Then I got bored with them (20 years the same chip.....) and sold all of them and went on with more modern chips. It is that the human memory is fading so I will compare again with Fluency and ESS DACs (Delta Sigma, yay!) just to either be confused or pleasantly surprised. It is slightly inconvenient that I can't play high res files with TDA1541A but I guess I forgive the chip for that 
Last edited:
It is slightly inconvenient that I can't play high res files with TDA1541A but I guess I forgive the chip for that
But you can if your dac is non-oversampling. It will be only 16 bit but the frequency may be up to 8x, depending on setup. I play high res pcm files on my diy dac all the time (WaveIO, Iancanada fifo and I2S-PCM board, diy copper foil/veroboard tda1541a S1 dac).
I hear more information on my tda 1541A dac than an another one with a 24 bits ES9023 ! Although it's biased as the front end is spidf and not IanCanada treated !
And most of the speakers are not in pair with a good TDA1541 DAC...
So it's not a dead chip, what a pitty we don't see more AD1862 or PCM63 (here for some reasons) dacs as well !
Did you rebuy guys all your 16 bits red book material in 24/192 ?????
And most of the speakers are not in pair with a good TDA1541 DAC...
So it's not a dead chip, what a pitty we don't see more AD1862 or PCM63 (here for some reasons) dacs as well !
Did you rebuy guys all your 16 bits red book material in 24/192 ?????
I only have a few of my favorite albums in high res.
I intend to try oversampling with software soon though. Currently I am playing files with a Pogoplug/Debian/Mpd player and it does not have the processing power to oversample. I have a reconditioned HP cb1 (Chromebox/Intel 2955U processor) on the way via ebay and I intend to run it as a Linux server and try Sox oversampling/filtering.
I intend to try oversampling with software soon though. Currently I am playing files with a Pogoplug/Debian/Mpd player and it does not have the processing power to oversample. I have a reconditioned HP cb1 (Chromebox/Intel 2955U processor) on the way via ebay and I intend to run it as a Linux server and try Sox oversampling/filtering.
I always asked why all those free distros have not oversampling on the fly possibilities/options? Certainly due to the perf of those famous nano-pc computers ?!
Sox is not friendly to use but with the low cost HDD today you can make a copy of your Library with an oversampling reccording target with a script if I remember ! So your nano-pc can read it after.
Odroid C1+ is appelling
Sox is not friendly to use but with the low cost HDD today you can make a copy of your Library with an oversampling reccording target with a script if I remember ! So your nano-pc can read it after.
Odroid C1+ is appelling