What's the latest and greatest chip-amp people are playing with?

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duanestorey

duanestorey

Member
Joined 2010
#1
I'm currently building a LM3886 amp, which is great. But it's a bit old now, so I'm just curious what else people are playing with these days? Is it still a pretty reasonable amplifier solution, or what other chips/solutions are people messing with at home? Thanks!
 
#2
Most of the IC companies are focusing upon Class-D chip amps rather than Class-AB chip amps, these days. In forty years time, we might easily conclude that the LM3886 actually represented the pinnacle, the acme, of Class-AB chip amps.
 
#3
As someone coming in from the outside, it seemed like there was a ton of excitement around the LM3886 around 10 years ago, but nothing really replaced it since then. I see Class D kits, but not a lot of people building class D from scratch. So I was just curious.
 
#5
duanestorey said:
As someone coming in from the outside, it seemed like there was a ton of excitement around the LM3886 around 10 years ago, but nothing really replaced it since then.
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There was a wave of excitement in the business when it first came out, I think that was mid-90s. A monolithic IC that could handle that kind of power was revolutionary. Prior to that chipamps were generally a bit anaemic in power levels or were hybrids.

The chip amp which interests me at present is NXP TDF8541. Haven't played with it yet as it needs I2C control, hence some kind of coding.
 
#6
The LM3886 is still pretty decent, which is probably why it hasn't been replaced. As you can also see in the links provided above, with a precision opamp performing error-correction on it, the LM3886 can be driven to provide world class performance.

I suspect the reason few are designing Class D amps from scratch is that it's actually rather difficult to do well. If you want world class Class D performance, you need to look at Bruno Putzeys' patents on the topic. You then also need to realize that you're dealing with a circuit that switches at a fairly high speed, so you need to pay attention to the PCB layout and such. It's just not as readily approachable as a Class AB amp. So many probably start with the evaluation boards and go from there.

Tom
 
#7
You need to specify the domain you'd like it to work in. There's analog, where the input may be fed with RCA connectors. There's digital, where the input maybe USB or I2S. I for one am using a digital input amp (Zoudio aio4ch) along with USB to I2S converters, for connection to a PC as music source.

Even though these digital input chips exist, analog input is still the favorite among most. To the point where it'll eventually drive the digital input stuff out of Audiophile existence, relegated instead to cell phones, laptops and Alexa style speakers where its more economical to leave everything digital.
 
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