Sound quality of chip amplifiers

[Kees]

Chip amplifiers are extremely simple, but what is the sound quality in comparison to discrete amplifiers?

[wim]

Suprising good i can tell you. I made a lot off them with different chips/PCB's and they all sound good.

As you wrote: simple and easy to make. Try to make one!

[segasonicfan]

I recommend the LM4752. Very easy to make an extremely high quality.

-Segasonicfan

[pinkmouse]

You might want to read this thread, amongst many others dealing with the subject.

[tmblack]

Depends on the chip.
But I never made one better than an optimized discrete transistor amp.

How can it, when you can choose the best transistors and complementary ones, and work on best compensation methods.

Anyone compare the LM3875 with the OPA549?

Tom

[TwoSpoons]

Originally posted by tmblack
How can it, when you can choose the best transistors and complementary ones, and work on best compensation methods.

Because on a chip die you can achieve far better thermal and parameter matching than you could ever achieve with discretes. It is one solid chunk of silicon after all.

[angel]

"Can" being the operative word here.

Few chip manufacturers go to the lengths required to fully realize the potential of ICs. Some do, though, and their prices reflect it.

I have no doubt that chipamps can sound great; I've owned at least one that did a great job.

However, I have yet to audition one that (given a USD/EUR >1000 source and a pair of USD/EUR >2500 speakers) could perform as well as Balanced Audio, Pass Laboratories, etc..

Give John Curl the freedom to design a large 90nm process with a few runs in the measure/trim cycle, though, and I'm fairly certain those of us who could afford the chip (along with some nice Black Gate and/or Jensen caps, plus some neat attenuators) would throw our discretes out the window in no time.

[tlf9999]

Originally posted by Kees
Chip amplifiers are extremely simple, but what is the sound quality in comparison to discrete amplifiers?

They are just as good as similar discrete amps. To me, discrete amps have the advantage of being extremely beefy and being able to handle large current.

I would say chip amps are extremely simple: while the physical count is low, they have a lot more devices inside of them. For the same reason, you wouldn't call a Pentium 4 cpu extremely simple.

Originally posted by tmblack
Anyone compare the LM3875 with the OPA549?

Tom

I have done that (lm3875 vs. opa541). I think the opa541 has more punch at lower frequency but I don't think i can tell them apart consistently in a scientific test.

[EWorkshop1708]

Chipamps are great.

They are designed to be cheap, but because it's an IC and they can build to exact specs, and have multiple CCS, they work good, and have very low offset, and can work great at almost any voltage in their working range.

Before I really figured out HOW a descrete amp worked, I used chipamps. LM386 is one of my little favorites. You can use em for anything, and they are so small. Also I love to play with opamps.

For larger power, the big chip amps are awesome. I'm using a HT Receiver, and the two front 100W Channels are driven by a Pioneer chip and 6800uf caps. The highs are great and sound clean, and it drives good power. The bass isn't too bad, but it doesn't use really large filter caps, but still sounds good.

I have a 2nd Amp for the Bass, and my 12" 4 ohm subwoofer. I'm running the 2 channels in parallel, the amp already had 0.1 resistors on the outputs in series with the speaker, hehe, real easy! It's also a chipamp, it has a hefty transformer, and this badboy has some real power. Amp says 120W/ch x 2 and has a STK4231 in a cheap Sharp amp.. I guess the chip is pushed near it's limits at full volume, but this thing has blown small speakers in the past when being used stereo. However, I've had to replace the chip once. Only thing I don't like other than the small 5600 uf caps, is that I hear a small AC hum if My ear is 6 inch away from speaker.

My receiver sounds the best however SQ wise, best highs, no hum. I'm replacing my Subwoofer chipamp with a Single channel Mono Descrete design I just built and still completing that has 5 pairs of MJL4281/4302 output transistors and 5 pairs of 4700uf (23,500uf) for the output, and another pair of 4700uf for the Vas, to drive 4 Ohm load using CFP. With my ear in the speaker, I cannot hear any hum at all, only a very faint hiss . I hear more hiss when I connect the line level connection, than with nothing at all. Hehe, line level hiss. It also sounds much better than the old STK chip amp. I was thinking of using the Transformer from my chip amp, but I'm really wanting to get a Toroid trans that will give me 350W RMS or more into 4 ohms instead.

Chip amps are great, but IMO DIY chipamps vs commercial may be better depending on design, or just a good make that uses them. Now of course it depends on the chip, as some sound better than others, but I still think that chipamps sometimes can be a bit noisy, and have more hiss than a good Discrete design.

[ThorstenL]

Konnichiwa,

Originally posted by Kees
Chip amplifiers are extremely simple, but what is the sound quality in comparison to discrete amplifiers?

This is a troublesome topic.

The problem is that a lot is lumped under "chipamp".

The best chips (power and low level) tend to be as good as at the very least the upper midrange of serious high end discrete designs and then some. Most chips are not as good as that thoug. So, if you know what is good and how to use it well among chips you can easily and relibly get a soundquality that takes a lot of effort and failure to achieve in traditional discrete circuitry.

On the other hand, with discrete circuitry you can choose uncommon circuit topologies which may be ultimatly a better choice subjectively, but be prepared for a lot of hard work.

Sayonara