Is this a real TDA1541A?

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#702
I have one for sale ,bought it directly from esdsign, will have to check prices and will decide. The taiwanese chips are considered the best sounding. If someone is inerested pls reply here. Regards
 

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#706
vintageaxeman said:
Is this one fake?
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Did you buy it? Have you got it? Where did it come from? Is that a Chinese store watermark? Are you thinking of buying a chip from China?

If you are thinking of buying any exotic and pricey chips from overseas on an auction site it might be less bother just to throw your money out the window.

With computer graphics I just assume every pricey chip has forged marking unless the provenance is solid. Then again Im no expert but Id rather call a genuine chip a fake then see members ripped off.

If that chip is being sold on a reputable site its likely to be a genuine and working TDA1541A. It might be one of the chips that measured badly to be discarded that then resurfaced. It might even measure well. It could even be a factory measured and stamped S2 but if it measures as an S2 it would be a shock. Why would a reputable chip seller of rare and elite chips sell on an auction site? Why would an S2 tested chip in Holland end up in China? Why are there multiple sellers all with the same photo?

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So the likelihood is its a Philips TDA1541A chip that failed quality control when being assembled in Taiwan, that can be expected to measure badly and has been upcycled with some good stamps. There are probably dozens or hundreds of these "S2" chips in the West now as most punters who can switch a TDA1541A chip cant measure it to know they were scammed. It will sound good enough for expectation bias to do the rest. This is such a great scam.

Of course I dont know and Ive been totally wrong before calling out fakes.

I still say you are better off buying a chip that is a more genuine fake. At least you know for sure you've been done. How about an S7?
View attachment 1034066

Or just be clever and buy off a member on this forum where provenance can be established. There are some TDA1541A over on the Swap.
 
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#710
audioman54 said:
Wow! I have not looked at this site in several years and the first thing I see is a question about the very Old TDA1541 Philips Dac chips that I liked so much.

Those look real to me and I also have a large bunch of the non-Crown Select parts which those are. They came from the Magnavox CD Players we used to modify and the first thing we did was take out the normal chips and replace them with the Crown Select TDA1541S1 Crown chips.

Those non-Crown TDA1541 chips are still good parts especially if a few changes are made to the analog output circuits and the power supplies that feed them. With the proper changes the CD Players that use the TDA1541 chips can have a very pleasant sound playing 16/44.1kHz CD disks. However non of my children even own CD's now. They download all there music which is why I built them all 24/192 D to A preamps and LME power amps.

In fact people still contact me directly to fix their old MSBrasfield or MSB CD players after having enjoyed them for 25+ years. In fact I will be getting one in very soon to fix. I still have most of the parts but the lasers are now getting hard to find and those are usually what fails.

By the way, if you want to make the normal DAC chips sound more like the crown select chips you can try paralleling them, i.e. solder one on top of the other. Some people even did 4 chips that way but I found that had diminishing returns. Two usually helped enough. Replacing the entire analog stage after the DAC chip however was key to making those players sound good and I have updated quite a few of those old cd players with the new LME analog parts we created at the late National Semiconductor which is now TI and TI shut down the Fab that made the LME parts on a very special process. Putting in better clock chips also helped.

Hope you enjoy playing with those TDA1541 parts.

Best Audio Regards,

Audioman54/Mark
Click to expand...
Hi, so I have just to piggyback two of them and just replace the single one ??
 
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#712
audioman54 said:
Wow! I have not looked at this site in several years and the first thing I see is a question about the very Old TDA1541 Philips Dac chips that I liked so much.

Those look real to me and I also have a large bunch of the non-Crown Select parts which those are. They came from the Magnavox CD Players we used to modify and the first thing we did was take out the normal chips and replace them with the Crown Select TDA1541S1 Crown chips.

Those non-Crown TDA1541 chips are still good parts especially if a few changes are made to the analog output circuits and the power supplies that feed them. With the proper changes the CD Players that use the TDA1541 chips can have a very pleasant sound playing 16/44.1kHz CD disks. However non of my children even own CD's now. They download all there music which is why I built them all 24/192 D to A preamps and LME power amps.

In fact people still contact me directly to fix their old MSBrasfield or MSB CD players after having enjoyed them for 25+ years. In fact I will be getting one in very soon to fix. I still have most of the parts but the lasers are now getting hard to find and those are usually what fails.

By the way, if you want to make the normal DAC chips sound more like the crown select chips you can try paralleling them, i.e. solder one on top of the other. Some people even did 4 chips that way but I found that had diminishing returns. Two usually helped enough. Replacing the entire analog stage after the DAC chip however was key to making those players sound good and I have updated quite a few of those old cd players with the new LME analog parts we created at the late National Semiconductor which is now TI and TI shut down the Fab that made the LME parts on a very special process. Putting in better clock chips also helped.

Hope you enjoy playing with those TDA1541 parts.

Best Audio Regards,

Audioman54/Mark
Click to expand...
LME means...?
 
#716
Paul.
You seem confused, you asked me what I got for my Taiwan TDA1542A's So, I never had any. I had TDA1541A-S2's, anyway, why would I have to tell you what I got for them? Is that not up to me? As far as I am concerned, that is an end to it. I have provided information to the original requester.
 
#717
jotom750 said:
Paul.
You seem confused, you asked me what I got for my Taiwan TDA1542A's So, I never had any. I had TDA1541A-S2's, anyway, why would I have to tell you what I got for them? Is that not up to me? As far as I am concerned, that is an end to it. I have provided information to the original requester.
Click to expand...
Sorry you need a reality check mate . Please in future do not waste peoples time with non sensible jargon .
 
#719
Just read the reviews of chinese ebay sellers. There is everything from, "parts were not new, parts were fake, parts did not work" to "parts did not match the picture"!!! However this seller mostly offers LCD spare screens, not the usual parts seller. Still at that price I would rate it high risk. The red alert is that TDAs never have been made in China. You would have to make low level measurements to verify it is genuine. The only sources I would trust is a CD Player or DAC that has it originally or in a shop and it is in original single package.
 
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#720
Bernhard said:
Just read the reviews of chinese ebay sellers. There is everything from, "parts were not new, parts were fake, parts did not work" to "parts did not match the picture"!!! However this seller mostly offers LCD spare screens, not the usual parts seller. Still at that price I would rate it high risk. The red alert is that TDAs never have been made in China. You would have to make low level measurements to verify it is genuine. The only sources I would trust is a CD Player or DAC that has it originally or in a shop and it is in original single package.
Click to expand...
I agree totally.
 
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