can you buy real tda1541a anywhere these days?

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If the chip works, it is real.
If it gets hot and no sound comes out it is either fake or defective.
Who cares where it is made. There is too much bs surrounding this chip.

Yes some do sound better than others, but it is far more important to get the board design right, and use a standard chinese made chip made in 2004 than to put an S2 into a badly designed board.

The better board layout/design will sound better any day of the week.
 
What design do yourecommend?

Hi Erin.
I should confess that I am a valve head and would like a valve output stage instead of op amps.. tis a personal preference rather than a trigger for glass vs silicon.
I might buy a qls player which obtains the wav files vis an sd card. it has optical and spdif outs on the case BUT it also has I2S on board which one may utilise.
Given this evil plan of mine.. do you have any designs in mind?
Thanks
Nick
 
Agreed, a valve output stage on a dac sounds better. Don't bother with solid state output. A total waste of time.
Qls gives very good sound but is a pita to use. Better off using a pc as a source. Pc can sound as good as qls as long as you get the setup right. I2S is also a pain and will only give good sound if the wires are close and grounding between units is very good, usually it is not. Also your hifi ends up looking like a mad scientists lab. Stick to spdif. Avoid any raindrop-hui dacs like the plague.
 
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Agreed, a valve output stage on a dac sounds better. Don't bother with solid state output. A total waste of time.
Qls gives very good sound but is a pita to use. Better off using a pc as a source. Pc can sound as good as qls as long as you get the setup right. I2S is also a pain and will only give good sound if the wires are close and grounding between units is very good, usually it is not. Also your hifi ends up looking like a mad scientists lab. Stick to spdif. Avoid any raindrop-hui dacs like the plague.
Bugger ! , I just bought one of these : (SUMMER SALE) DAC TDA1541+WM8805 NOS 1.0UI multi-input | eBay
Erin , any suggestions to improve sound quality ?
 
Well, there is not much room on that board to do the things that would make a large difference.
At least it has the wm8805 which is good.
Give it 20 hours of run-in when you get it and see if you like the sound. The BC tank caps that hui uses are quite average sounding. Replace those with nichicon FW 4700uf for a start.
 
Well, there is not much room on that board to do the things that would make a large difference.
At least it has the wm8805 which is good.
Give it 20 hours of run-in when you get it and see if you like the sound. The BC tank caps that hui uses are quite average sounding. Replace those with nichicon FW 4700uf for a start.

Thanks Erin , got it up and running in stock form with the Universal tube stage.
2min test on headphones , surprisingly good sound.
I have plenty of Nichicons and Slimics to try in the power supply as well as Oscon Sepc for the digital circuits.
Will give it a run for a few days before making any changes.
Thanks for the help.
Gordon
 
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