Low Noise opamps for 2014?

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.. aside from the ridiculously expensive OPA627 I found the OPA1641 should work well from a noise standpoint. Using this part did in fact get the noise much lower, but the sound seemed harsh, for lack of a better description. I think it has something to do with the non-linear Cin of this type of device as described earlier in this thread. I am currently using LME49710s in this circuit, and they seem to perform well, although somewhat noisier than NE5534 or OPA1641; those two are about equal in terms of noise in this circuit.
I really don't believe such commentary - doing the numbers we see the OPA164x datasheet distortion graph is rising to 1 ppm @ 1 kHz from below that, reaching 10 ppm at 10 kHz, 3 Vrms Vcm for 600 Ohm series R
This including, the listening comments, are perfectly possible. Looks like only Bonsai bothered to follow up the Kingston thread I linked to.

With due respect, it is unlikely that more than 2 people on this thread can layout, decouple & ground stuff to a sufficiently high standard to realise the full performance of 5534 let alone da new uber OPAs .. and one of them is Guru Wurcer 🙂

Be VERY suspicious if you are measuring much more distortion than you expect especially if it seems to come & go with level. Often this is the only visible sign of Stability/Oscillation. Difficult to find as connecting ANYTHING, including 10x scope probes, changes the stability.
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In Jurassic times, when MM preamps were of serious commercial interest to me, I did a full analysis of MM noise, and found you'll be lucky to get 1dB better noise compared to 5534 with anything else . You have to take into account the substantial Inductance by looking at noise in 1/3 8ve bands, applying noise weighting to taste, and then RMS sum. There's a NS or AD application note that details all this.

5534 is almost tailored for MM use. 😀
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Grados have some of the lowest inductance of MMs but are otherwise flawed. The ADC XLM mk3 has probably the best balance of performance including noise .. better than the earlier XLMs.

And yes. ALL MM makers rely on substantial electrical peaking for flat response. This has been the case since the V15 type II. (Before, they were doing it but didn't realise it.) IIRC, Shure did an AES paper describing the type II including this.

A supa quality MM preamp MUST have some easy facility to adjust i/p capacitance. 47k is what the MM makers design for but the required capacitance varies. I like the QUAD method where you can get at the input bits to solder the odd NPO/COG ceramic. Switches are EVIL in this sensitive spot.
 
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i know a little about low noise design

my last pro gig was designing strain gage instrumentation - 120-700 Ohms for our transducers, typical Av 4000 - at the end of 50' cables - in medical and industrial applications - looking with 16 bit ADC - spent many hours plotting the noise, histograms, fft - lots of "onion peeling" to get within a few dB of Johnson

I passed up the AD797 in favor of the LT1028 on a close reading/extrapolation from the datasheets - it appeared the LT has a slight edge in I_n 1/f corner for our resistance range

but out customers never demanded the best possible DC performance, all dynamic applications - I never got to use AC bridge drive, synchronous demodulation - a real career disappointment
 
to answer the original post ..
  • Pay LOADSA attention to earthing, decoupling & stability. You need to understand Kingston's thread.
  • OPAx134 is the least fussy of da uber OPAs if you haven't got Guru Wurcer's facility with the above. Good for HiZ generally and when you dun wun Ib. See what came best for Kingston.
  • Choose horses for courses .. the correct OPA for the source. This is NOT trivial.
  • There's good reason why 5532/4 is a favourite.
  • DON'T use LM4562, LMExxxxx for LF filters & single supply.
 
@ kgrlee

Yus i dud reed it 🙂

Originally Posted by ricardo/kgrlee

But when you decouple to to earth/ground, you have to be careful that the crap on the supplies isn't coupled to your nice clean earths. I always define 2 separate nets; clean and dirty. Clean is used only for feedback & signal. These are only connected at the output of the 'box' and this is also the connection to the main PSU capacitor. ie star earthing.

opamps and local decoupling of rails, some questions

I like 2 x rail to ground & rail to rail.

Originally Posted by Kingston

I also suspect it was the better decoupling implementation that gave me these improvements, little to do with opamps themselves.

opamps and local decoupling of rails, some questions

Bingo !

What's most important is that I can no longer tell the difference between opamps when comparing channel sets. I used to be able to pick them easily: "the fluffy bass OPA2132", "nervously sharp LT1358" and "ultra-accurate LME49860" etc. sounds. But then, I was listening to 0.1% THD. Looks like I've been mostly hearing PSU and dirty power distribution artifacts.

opamps and local decoupling of rails, some questions

Double bingo !!

Originally Posted by ricardo

Chassis should not be used to carry signal or decoupling currents.

I'm really unhappy about using Chassis for anything except shielding. I always define 3 earths; Clean, Dirty & Chassis. They are connected ONLY at the Star Point.

opamps and local decoupling of rails, some questions

Well i've been implimenting such things for years. I've also mentioned on numerous occasions in various threads on here that, you can't beat having Individual ground/common returns to the star point, from EACH component.

Ideally you then have an audio star point for the Actual audio components ground/common returns = Clean. And also a power supply star point for OPA's + & - pins, & also for the OPA's bypass capacitors ground/common returns. You only link the 2 stars @ the power supply. The mains earth "can" connect to this point, & chassis.
 
For low voltage noise purpose, once I put 4 C1844 (0.5nV/√Hz) in parallel, which makes 0.5/ √4 nV/√Hz, at the input stage.
For low current noise i.e. for good I-V conversion of photodiode signal, FETs with Teflon pot.

I would do still the same thing this year.
I will never use OPamps at the input stages for extremely low noise purposes.

For low distortion, I found RC4558 the best fit in my circuit
A Low Distortion Amplifier Based on a "Tandem" Correction Scheme Powered by a Modifie
because it doesn't get oscillation easily.
 
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When looking at opamp noise, you really have to consider the source impedance - it makes a significant impact in the overall noise peformance.

I took Steve Hagman's very good 'Noise Visualizer' spread sheet from his EDN article and modded it so that it could accept 6 op amp noise inputs - I've attached the plot which covers LME49990, LM4562, NE5534, AD844, OPA2134and AD797.

Below 400 Ohms, the AD797, LME49990 and the LT1115(*) are the clear winners. Great for mic amps, buffers etc.

In the 400-2k Ohm range, its still the AD797, LME49990 and the LT1115. Good for buffering volume control pots of up to 10k Ohms (at mid resistance position, the source impedance seen by the opamp is 1/4 of the element resistance assuming you are using a low driving source). For a 10k pot, this is 2.5k.

2000 Ohms to 10k, surprisingly it's the NE5534 - the very low input noise current of 0.4pA/rtHz (is that perhaps a misprint in the TI data sheet?) looks like a winner. Doug Self will be sitting in his his chair right now, nodding his head saying 'I told you so' 😉. Its a great pity that the IP bias currents on the 5534 are so high - 200nA typical and as high as 1uA. Given its age, it is a remarkable opamp though.

Above about 10k, the OPA2134, due to its very low noise current, looks best. It does not perform well compared to the others with low source resistances, because its input noise voltage is high at 8nV/rtHz. Its noise current is 3fA - 3 orders of magnitide lower than the bipolar opamps.

From the above, you can see why for volume control pots of 10k and below, the AD797, LME49990 and the LT1115 are a good choice, while for a 50k volume pot, an OP2134 might make a better choice. The NE5534 still makes a fine RIAA equalizer amp, because the low input noise current contributes less noise betwen 10 kHz and 20 kHz than competing designs (the cartidge inductance causes noise to increase). Add to this the RIAA equalization in an all active design, and you have an optimum solution wrt noise - another reason DS likes them. But, you will need to couple the cartidge to the opamp through a cap because of the high bias current.

(* I am not sure if the LT1115 uses the bias current cancellation that DS mentions in his book - same used on the LT1028 - that actually causes problems so the noise figure numbers published have some caveats attached to them)

There are some nice AD7xx and AD8xx opamps that I have not shown - some more reseach is probably called for to get an even broader picture.

😎

PS - Anyone know how to get the damn x-axis tick labels to the bottom of the graph?



Off the grid right click on the Y axis. This should bring up a pop up with 'Format Axis". Click on format axis. Click on the scale tab. Look for 'Value X axis crosses at' Set the value.

Works on exel 2002. But you know how micro loves to change things.

Cheers,
 
Davada, thanks for that. Its my work PC - its quite a recent version that seems to work differently. I tried it on my old Excel version (c. 2000) and it works - but not on the latest version. You have to go to the design tab, which comes up when you right click off the grid. BTW, trying to protect cells is also a pain in Excel. I want to lock everything except the cells where data is input. Massive rigmarole. No wonder people prefer the other options from those other guys down in the Bay area. Ditto Word. OK for writing letters or fiction. Add some graphics, plots, diagrams and its all fall down. A real PITA. Who the #$%$ designs this stuff?

End of rant.
 
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"5534 is almost tailored for MM use."

Yes - its the low current noise of 0.4 pA/rt Hz. This makes a big difference 10 kHz to 20 kHz. Most bip opamps are > 1 pA/rt Hz and that ends up swamping the noise voltage with high L sources.

I think a Linear Systems JFET with 1nV/rt Hz and negligible IIRC input current noise will pip most opamps - provided the second stage is carefully designed - e.g. no carelessly configured current mirror load.

I am working on the phono equalizer for my new preamp - 10 BF862's in parallel with a similar input structure to Denis Colin/Syn08. I think that will do it noise wise. MC a different story or course - seems parallel bipolar is the way to go, or stacked AD797/LME49990.

Joachim still has not shared his 20 parallel method circuit yielding 0.22 nV/rt Hz

😉
 
MC a different story or course - seems parallel bipolar is the way to go, or stacked AD797/LME49990.

Joachim still has not shared his 20 parallel method circuit yielding 0.22 nV/rt Hz
Is that measured or sim?

I thought I had the lowest noise MC headamp in the known universe at <0.28nV/rtHz measured. It uses a giarnormous total of 2 devices. 🙂

I think a Linear Systems JFET with 1nV/rt Hz and negligible IIRC input current noise will pip most opamps - provided the second stage is carefully designed - e.g. no carelessly configured current mirror load.
Yes. That might pip a NOS Mullard 5534 (made by Southampton virgins) with a MM cartridge for RIAA but not by more than a dB regardless of the weighting you use (or don't use).
 
Davada, thanks for that. Its my work PC - its quite a recent version that seems to work differently. I tried it on my old Excel version (c. 2000) and it works - but not on the latest version. You have to go to the design tab, which comes up when you right click off the grid. BTW, trying to protect cells is also a pain in Excel. I want to lock everything except the cells where data is input. Massive rigmarole. No wonder people prefer the other options from those other guys down in the Bay area. Ditto Word. OK for writing letters or fiction. Add some graphics, plots, diagrams and its all fall down. A real PITA. Who the #$%$ designs this stuff?

End of rant.

From the king himself. "Oh no, everything in windows is completely configurable."

I think we have to deal with formats in the tool used to generate the graph. Apps like word get a bit mapped copy. That was MS's way of dealing with importing.

We have bloatware like adobe for that.
 
Is that measured or sim?

I thought I had the lowest noise MC headamp in the known universe at <0.28nV/rtHz measured. It uses a giarnormous total of 2 devices. 🙂

Yes. That might pip a NOS Mullard 5534 (made by Southampton virgins) with a MM cartridge for RIAA but not by more than a dB regardless of the weighting you use (or don't use).

Maybe his number is even lower. I think his claim to fame on this one is he's using opamps (is it 20 pV rt Hz? Where are you Jochaim?).

Were you using the Rohm low rbb devices? The MJE13005 also make good low resource amplifiers I heard because of their low Rbb but the hFE is abysmal. And nowadays most of them are made in crappy fabs and assembled in sheds . . .

Did you work at Southhampton? Facility there is long gone I am afraid.
 
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Maybe his number is even lower. I think his claim to fame on this one is he's using opamps (is it 20 pV rt Hz? Where are you Jochaim?).

Were you using the Rohm low rbb devices? The MJE13005 also make good low resource amplifiers I heard because of their low Rbb but the hFE is abysmal. And nowadays most of them are made in crappy fabs and assembled in sheds . . .

Did you work at Southhampton? Facility there is long gone I am afraid.

Endless paralleling of devices is not particularly sophisticated design. Take 100 1nV op-amps in parallel and you have .1nV, at some level so what. The Lepaisant pre-amp does .06nV with transformers. Philips also presented an IEEE paper on a .25nV pre-amp using an optimized low rbb npn pair.
 
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From the king himself. "Oh no, everything in windows is completely configurable."

I think we have to deal with formats in the tool used to generate the graph. Apps like word get a bit mapped copy. That was MS's way of dealing with importing.

We have bloatware like adobe for that.

It's the user interface that needs a thorough upgrade and modernizing. Example: rotate the page . . . You have to go into a menu tab and set page breaks.

Why?

Right click,select 'rotate page' and the job should be done. Ditto moving pictures around and a few dozen other things.

But, I'm digressing here and going off topic. Better to move this to the lounge.
 
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Maybe his number is even lower. I think his claim to fame on this one is he's using opamps (is it 20 pV rt Hz? Where are you Jochaim?).

Were you using the Rohm low rbb devices? The MJE13005 also make good low resource amplifiers I heard because of their low Rbb but the hFE is abysmal. And nowadays most of them are made in crappy fabs and assembled in sheds . . .

Did you work at Southampton? Facility there is long gone I am afraid.
Got a link to where he claims 0.2nV/rtHz? I was amused this Millenium to find my <0.28nV/rtHz was still the quietest in the known universe after more than 30yrs. But I'm always willing to be proven wrong. 🙂

I used Hitachi 2sa108x & 2sc245x circa 1980. A number of people have built my circuit with the Rohm devices. Alas most of these supa lo rbb devices are now Unobtainium. You can still get some npn ones but the pnp ones only exist in certain secret hoards.

I've tested a lot of medium power devices (and so did Baxandall) but I no longer recommend them. They have to be selected for 1/f noise and the yield is poor.

I was only a satisfied customer. The Mullard Southampton factory made both my favourite LN OPA at that time and also my favourite LN FET.

When I returned to LN electronics circa 1990, Philips 5532/4s came from foreign climes where the virgins weren't and were no longer consistently LN
 
Originally Posted by scott wurcer

Endless paralleling of devices is not particularly sophisticated design.

Doesn't have to be sophisticated, if it works & gives good performance 😉

Originally Posted by kgrlee

I was amused this Millenium to find my <0.28nV/rtHz was still the quietest in the known universe after more than 30yrs

Yes 😀🙂 It's surprising how little we've come, in some respects, in 30 or so years !

Even if it were possible to design/produce a device/s that produced no noise, "unobtanuim" we would still be subject to the thermal etc noise/s of the other components in the circuit/s ! So realistically, i don't think we will see much improvement in that department !
 
Got a link to where he claims 0.2nV/rtHz? I was amused this Millenium to find my <0.28nV/rtHz was still the quietest in the known universe after more than 30yrs. But I'm always willing to be proven wrong. 🙂

I used Hitachi 2sa108x & 2sc245x circa 1980. A number of people have built my circuit with the Rohm devices. Alas most of these supa lo rbb devices are now Unobtainium. You can still get some npn ones but the pnp ones only exist in certain secret hoards.

I've tested a lot of medium power devices (and so did Baxandall) but I no longer recommend them. They have to be selected for 1/f noise and the yield is poor.

I was only a satisfied customer. The Mullard Southampton factory made both my favourite LN OPA at that time and also my favourite LN FET.

When I returned to LN electronics circa 1990, Philips 5532/4s came from foreign climes where the virgins weren't and were no longer consistently LN


Do you have your circuit Richard? Can you post it up?
 
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