Best low budget OPAmp ?

[hienrich]

Indeed.......

most might have forgotten them.......

 

[Jan Dupont]

Most wasn't born when the LF356 came on the market

 

[djk]

Hmm....

I may be in the minority here. I think the TL07X series sounds better than the LF35X series, and I find the OPA604 series to be quite a bit better, top-to-bottom.

The NE553X series sounds so much better as the front end of an amplifier than the LF/TL stuff, and doen't suffer phase inversion and latch-up when overdriven (of course no one here would ever overdrive an amplifier).

Another old opamp that sounds quite good as the front end is the LM318, although it is much faster than it needs to be.

 

[Jan Dupont]

djk;

Your are right
It all depends on the use.....
I would never use either the LF35x or TL0xx or for that matter the NE553x series in a low signal aplification stage (e.g. RIAA stages etc.), however it's funny to swap those DIP's around and hear the differences

 

[Ryssen]

Well if you realy want budget/old then try Rc1458..

Hmm,that would be a double 741..

 

[Nordic]

LM318 is what is in the frontend of the Mauro Penasa My_ref C, if my memory serves me well... with the designer being rather adamant about the use of this chip.

 

[djk]

The LM318 was the front end for all the older BGW amps too, 70V/µS in inverting mode.

 

[Conrad Hoffman]

IMHO, the LM318 is prone to instability, and very hard to use correctly. I'm wary of it, but one interesting application is an old National circuit app for a preamp. They used the mess-o-parallel transistors, the LM394, as a replacement front end, with the signal sent into the comp pins (I think). I built this circuit and it was stable and had fantastic noise performance. Sounded good too, but sort of useless info, since I think everything sounds the same if it has sufficient bandwidth, and doesn't misbehave in terms of crossover or instabilty. Your ears may be better. Unfortunately, I don't think the LM394 is made anymore, and the suggested replacement I saw doesn't use the exact same technique.

 

[juma]

For buffer or preamp (from RIAA to headamp-but don't go below 64 Ohm load): AD797 beats them all

For active filter: LT1361 - nothing comes close to it

Fully differential amplifier: OPA1632 (THS4131 is almost the same thing, it just wants a bit more RF taming).

P.S. I tried almost everything produced by Analog Devices, Linear and Texas Instruments.