Why would you say "As for the 3886, it does look like it is finished as far as TI is concerned"? What data do you have to support that statement? Is it marked 'NRND -- not recommended for new designs' or 'last-time buy' on TI.com?
Right now, as I said above, EVERYONE's fab capacity is pushed to the limits, not to mention packaging and test capacity. Toyota is curtailing car assembly as are GM and others. Lack of capacity in these unprecedented times doesn't mean that companies are wholesale discontinuing products. It means they can't produce products at a rate that meets demand and must make priority calls.
Sixteen months ago, it was nearly impossible to find toilet paper and Clorox wipes anywhere in the USA. That doesn't mean that companies decided to stop making these necessary items -- it just meant that demand far exceeded production capacity.
Right now, as I said above, EVERYONE's fab capacity is pushed to the limits, not to mention packaging and test capacity. Toyota is curtailing car assembly as are GM and others. Lack of capacity in these unprecedented times doesn't mean that companies are wholesale discontinuing products. It means they can't produce products at a rate that meets demand and must make priority calls.
Sixteen months ago, it was nearly impossible to find toilet paper and Clorox wipes anywhere in the USA. That doesn't mean that companies decided to stop making these necessary items -- it just meant that demand far exceeded production capacity.
The posters who actually use the chip are finding it difficult to source.
The OP seems to be a consultant or marketing agent trying to see how much demand is there.
Like I and others said earlier. the 3886 is no longer in production use in any volumes.
Given the pressure for other chips maybe made on the same production line, it is going to have low priority.
As a repair shop, or whatever, the average individual may store not more than 50 chips, which may be 10,000 in the world...
Which is not available any more, for whatever reason.
In a plant capable of much larger volumes, this then becomes an odd lot, and low priority.
The listeners have moved to ear pods and home theaters, with digital sound and so on, there is little, and declining, demand for Class AB amplifiers.
So my reasoning was to look for alternate chip amps from a different supplier.
You are still going to eat, and need toilet paper and cleaning supplies.
But your life will not stop if this chips goes out of production.
It will be made if needed, and the decision will be made by TI, not us, as our quantities are too small for them to give much attention at this time of crisis.
The OP seems to be a consultant or marketing agent trying to see how much demand is there.
Like I and others said earlier. the 3886 is no longer in production use in any volumes.
Given the pressure for other chips maybe made on the same production line, it is going to have low priority.
As a repair shop, or whatever, the average individual may store not more than 50 chips, which may be 10,000 in the world...
Which is not available any more, for whatever reason.
In a plant capable of much larger volumes, this then becomes an odd lot, and low priority.
The listeners have moved to ear pods and home theaters, with digital sound and so on, there is little, and declining, demand for Class AB amplifiers.
So my reasoning was to look for alternate chip amps from a different supplier.
You are still going to eat, and need toilet paper and cleaning supplies.
But your life will not stop if this chips goes out of production.
It will be made if needed, and the decision will be made by TI, not us, as our quantities are too small for them to give much attention at this time of crisis.
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World changes.
In my own area, kids do not play guitar any more, record charts no longer show inspiring Rock bands, they have no Guitar Gods they want to imitate, now being a YouTuber or an "influencer" or a Tik Tok uploader brings 40X the chicks being a leather clad long hair guitar player does, meaning no demand for Guitar Amps, *specially* LOUD ones meant to be used live, for obvious reasons.
And those who still play, do it mostly on simulators plugged in their PCs or straight on Software.
Oh well.
Not here, though stock is low.
From NTE.....148 in stock
https://www.ntepartsdirect.com/cgi-...ebrtn=search&ml=LANSA:XHTML&part=CEP&lang=ENG
The South Florida National sales rep and some others were very generous with samples even though they knew what I was making at home. I even made a guitar amp for the National guy's kid.
The in house Motorola semi sales guy, the National guy, the HP / Agilent sales engineer, and to a lesser extent the ON Semi guy (they didn't exist until 1999) all got rich enough to retire early off of the iDEN Phone account. From the beginning until the mid / late 2000's they were all made in Florida.
That's often the case here too, and I'm guilty as charged. Most of the time my guitar cable is plugged into a Focusrite interface. I can get that 60's surf guitar sound that I learned on with a menu pick. When it is plugged into an amp, it's my 4 watt DIY tube amp.
I have a 100 watt monster that has not seen power in years, and will likely be scavenged for parts.
Wiseoldtech : check the other US sites, I did, and got the results above...Amazon.com, Farnell and a third one. Newark I think.
No stock, no idea of new supply dates.
Back order means the company has some intention of delivering by that time...Not just RS, and not just these , the story is similar for other things as well.
No stock, no idea when you will get it.
No stock, no idea of new supply dates.
Back order means the company has some intention of delivering by that time...Not just RS, and not just these , the story is similar for other things as well.
No stock, no idea when you will get it.
I'm not sure what gave you this idea. The greatest part of my consulting work is developing and designing high-end audio equipment for a brand you may or may not recognize. I'm not trying to gauge how much demand there is, I'm trying to figure out when it will be safe to use the LM3886 gain.
You could conclude just the opposite from the available facts, that demand is so high the existing production line can't keep up. There's a lot of speculation and some fog-of-war right now. It's a good time to be extra careful about conclusions and how confident you can be in them.
If original source is not making them, then nobody can supply them either.
Link?
Is it an identifiable factoy or some mystery EBay seller with no traceability?
What are you exactly accusing him of?
Say it clearly.
Maybe no market for it so no need, nowadays development and improvement is being carried on in the Class D technology area which holds future.
Digression alert (from the OP)!
I was thinking just yesterday about the role conventional guitar amps play in our increasingly virtual world.
We are living in a world of information surplus, and that extends to sound. The sheer volume (no pun intended) of alternatives available when you start to virtualize guitar amps leads almost invariably to an exploration of what the vitrualized processes do at a very coarse level. We saw a similar kind of thing with electronic music starting in the mid-80s, when the number of synth patches you could store increased beyond what you could count on a few hands. (DX-7, I'm looking at you.) When faced with a large number of alternatives, one simply doesn't have the time or motivation to mine any one of them to discover and invent subtleties that can be used for artistic effect. In the case of guitar amps, the acoustic interaction between amp and guitar and amp and room becomes a casualty as well. This to me is not an insignificant loss.
I try to be philosophical about it though: It's just change that will eventually lead to new kinds of artistry. What is lost will be made up for with other approaches. But I currently still experience the greatest joy when I'm able to have an intimate relationship between the things that come between my guitar and the physical process of pushing air. I just love feeling it, if you know what I mean.
I was thinking just yesterday about the role conventional guitar amps play in our increasingly virtual world.
We are living in a world of information surplus, and that extends to sound. The sheer volume (no pun intended) of alternatives available when you start to virtualize guitar amps leads almost invariably to an exploration of what the vitrualized processes do at a very coarse level. We saw a similar kind of thing with electronic music starting in the mid-80s, when the number of synth patches you could store increased beyond what you could count on a few hands. (DX-7, I'm looking at you.) When faced with a large number of alternatives, one simply doesn't have the time or motivation to mine any one of them to discover and invent subtleties that can be used for artistic effect. In the case of guitar amps, the acoustic interaction between amp and guitar and amp and room becomes a casualty as well. This to me is not an insignificant loss.
I try to be philosophical about it though: It's just change that will eventually lead to new kinds of artistry. What is lost will be made up for with other approaches. But I currently still experience the greatest joy when I'm able to have an intimate relationship between the things that come between my guitar and the physical process of pushing air. I just love feeling it, if you know what I mean.
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It certainly can be. Review and Measurements of Neurochrome Modulus-286 Amp.
I have no connection to the above. I don't know Amir or Tom (though many in this sub-forum probably do). It's just a sample of the ways you can leverage the part for spectacular results.
Looking for Chinese IC caused Firefox to crash, it was a merchant site from China, so if you are curious, please look there.
The stereo version, 4780, is also not available easily.
The OP seems to have a commercial motive in getting supplies of the IC for two years, maybe he was trying to drum up support to convince the chip maker.
I do not know of any high end audio maker in the USA who can buy production quantities of 3886...that statement was dubious, but then I am in India, and my perception is that the actual hard work of chip making to amplifier packed in box is done in the Far East, simply because American labor is very expensive in comparison.
I think not many high end audio makers who can sell bulk quantities survive as independent entities. Except Japanese and others from the Far East, not in the USA or Europe.
Arcam and NAD are workshop scale operations, few hundred a week if that, and maybe shipped from China.
Denon + Marantz is part of a conglomerate, for example, and so many are gone, like Carver...
Also there is a tend for fad marketing, the product is very expensive compared to its actual cost.
But that was the original Japanese Gainclone, for example.
The stereo version, 4780, is also not available easily.
The OP seems to have a commercial motive in getting supplies of the IC for two years, maybe he was trying to drum up support to convince the chip maker.
I do not know of any high end audio maker in the USA who can buy production quantities of 3886...that statement was dubious, but then I am in India, and my perception is that the actual hard work of chip making to amplifier packed in box is done in the Far East, simply because American labor is very expensive in comparison.
I think not many high end audio makers who can sell bulk quantities survive as independent entities. Except Japanese and others from the Far East, not in the USA or Europe.
Arcam and NAD are workshop scale operations, few hundred a week if that, and maybe shipped from China.
Denon + Marantz is part of a conglomerate, for example, and so many are gone, like Carver...
Also there is a tend for fad marketing, the product is very expensive compared to its actual cost.
But that was the original Japanese Gainclone, for example.
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I was adding to my post yesterday, and could not revive my browser, so I went to sleep.
In India, no name 3886 is 230...$3 or so in US currency.
Many consultants here are retired or fresh, and with a history of poor business experience.
Like a famous comedian once said, a consultant is a person who takes your watch and tells you the time.
The only exception is doctors, who for tax reasons are kept as consultants, they are on flexible time or on call sometimes.
In India, no name 3886 is 230...$3 or so in US currency.
Many consultants here are retired or fresh, and with a history of poor business experience.
Like a famous comedian once said, a consultant is a person who takes your watch and tells you the time.
The only exception is doctors, who for tax reasons are kept as consultants, they are on flexible time or on call sometimes.
Well, the situation IS complex.
In no particular order:
* If that site crashed Firefox, maybe it includes some kind of malware and your Antivirus nukes it halfway without fully loading.
Sometimes I get the "wait" gyrating clock and it never finishes loading, sometimes get "Firefox has found an unexpected error - No error code available".
Annoying but it probably saves me from harm.
* I would expect for any regular USA based manufacturer to have product made in China under contract (or India - Vietnam - Malaysia - Taiwan - etc.); fully agree that US costs are high.
The OEM manufacturer still will need a reliable 3886 supply.
Personally would *love* to find a "second source" supplier, even IF TI were delivering, just for peace of mind.
Of course, second source should be fully competent to deliver what´s needed.
I don´t care much about "brand" as about *proven* technical specs.
Remember when I mentioned my problems with 2N3055 and 2N3773, and you told me USHA/UR were still making them
Same thing.
Maybe they would make a few thousand UR3886?
* competent Consultants are more necessary than ever.
In the old days Audio Engineers started Companies to sell their ideas (Marantz - H H Scott - Bose - Advent - Harman Kardon - JBL , etc.) ; in the "New Economy" often groups of Investors start them, their expertise is Financial, Marketing, Distribution, maybe Advertising, but they are not Engineers by any means, so they NEED Consultants for the physical product to be sold, or else.
In no particular order:
* If that site crashed Firefox, maybe it includes some kind of malware and your Antivirus nukes it halfway without fully loading.
Sometimes I get the "wait" gyrating clock and it never finishes loading, sometimes get "Firefox has found an unexpected error - No error code available".
Annoying but it probably saves me from harm.
* I would expect for any regular USA based manufacturer to have product made in China under contract (or India - Vietnam - Malaysia - Taiwan - etc.); fully agree that US costs are high.
The OEM manufacturer still will need a reliable 3886 supply.
Personally would *love* to find a "second source" supplier, even IF TI were delivering, just for peace of mind.
Of course, second source should be fully competent to deliver what´s needed.
I don´t care much about "brand" as about *proven* technical specs.
Remember when I mentioned my problems with 2N3055 and 2N3773, and you told me USHA/UR were still making them
Same thing.
Maybe they would make a few thousand UR3886?
* competent Consultants are more necessary than ever.
In the old days Audio Engineers started Companies to sell their ideas (Marantz - H H Scott - Bose - Advent - Harman Kardon - JBL , etc.) ; in the "New Economy" often groups of Investors start them, their expertise is Financial, Marketing, Distribution, maybe Advertising, but they are not Engineers by any means, so they NEED Consultants for the physical product to be sold, or else.
I'm really reluctant to post this, but for reasons not comprehensible to mortals this has gotten personal, so ...
I have no clue why you're approaching this thread with so much suspicion. There's literally zero intrigue, conspiracy, ulterior motive, or hidden agenda here. I don't mean to contribute to drama, but I do think I need to clear the air some. The innuendo, implications, and thinly veiled insults are inappropriate. Just stop it already, OK?
I have no clue why you're approaching this thread with so much suspicion. There's literally zero intrigue, conspiracy, ulterior motive, or hidden agenda here. I don't mean to contribute to drama, but I do think I need to clear the air some. The innuendo, implications, and thinly veiled insults are inappropriate. Just stop it already, OK?
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