The best sounding audio integrated opamps

Hi Andrea 🙂

Oh my...how you boring :dead:

It's not that black-or-white...

😉 Do you find technical details boring Andrea ?

I can imagine you as a doctor (well, maybe not lol), prescribing pills and potions.... without considering all the effects.

I enjoy reading your comments though 🙂
 

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Rather than me... I guess you find anything that can't been seen on an oscilloscope boring 😉

Or just disturbing 😉

Andrea, that shows to me, that you really don't understand the issues. The oscilloscope and other tests have to be done at a basic level to show a device isn't behaving unexpectedly. Then there are further tests under dynamic conditions... and just maybe doing that might reveal something about why some devices sound as they do.

I think even you mentioned, that even if a device were for example oscillating at HF, but it sounded OK then that wouldn't really concern you... a view that I think many will look on as rather strange.

You don't see it like that do you ?
 
Andrea, that shows to me, that you really don't understand the issues. The oscilloscope and other tests have to be done at a basic level to show a device isn't behaving unexpectedly. Then there are further tests under dynamic conditions... and just maybe doing that might reveal something about why some devices sound as they do.

I think even you mentioned, that even if a device were for example oscillating at HF, but it sounded OK then that wouldn't really concern you... a view that I think many will look on as rather strange.

You don't see it like that do you ?
Talk to me... you haven't yet understood that mine is not your basic scholastic generic application (very apt for seeing what you want to see 😉) which you kept posting scope measurement of 🙂


I will tell you once again that "opamps behaving unexpectedly" is not at all something new to me, I've run into it many times and in many different ways, and naturally I've learnt from it 🙂 Trust my practical wisdom...when it happens it shows, in one way or another... call it intuition, sensitivity, common sense, or (when it's the case) just plain evidence!
 
don't be sarcastic 😛

yes, I'll try the 1115 in a few and report back.

when I soldered all my opamps on browndogs, distortion lowered(the SS was clearer and cleaner) but PRaT also lowered compared to my high grade gold plated sockets, making me a very sad panda 🙁

Funny... maybe a loss of bass control is what you're identifying as a loss of "PRaT". Just an idea 🙂


Anyhow...yep, please report...although I was much less indifferent when you were about to test the OPA1611 (ouch I was sarcastic again) 🙂
 
Talk to me... you haven't yet understood that mine is not your basic scholastic generic application (very apt for seeing what you want to see 😉) which you kept posting scope measurement of 🙂


I will tell you once again that "opamps behaving unexpectedly" is not at all something new to me, I've run into it many times and in many different ways, and naturally I've learnt from it 🙂 Trust my practical wisdom...when it happens it shows, in one way or another... call it intuition, sensitivity, common sense, or (when it's the case) just plain evidence!

I could never work like that Andrea 🙂
We have opposing views here... and others reading this thread must too draw there own conclusions as they experiment.
 
I could never work like that Andrea 🙂
We have opposing views here... and others reading this thread must too draw there own conclusions as they experiment.
With the sort of perceptive faculties they happen to be endowed with. 😉

Unlike the (all too many here) objectivist revelators of eternal truths, I don't pretend that my judgments have to be taken as the final word, just because I'm momentarily convinced of whatever I'm saying. I like to share what I find along the way (and how my convictions change, or rather evolve) out of sheer enthusiasm. Whether you give it importance or not at all, depends on you (not me). I don't claim that what I'm saying would have any importance in and by itself. 😉😎


Nothing that you don't experience with your own person has any "truth" in it. If only more people could appreciate this truth. 🙂
 
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it's also funny how my 797B/1028A combo is amazing on a lot of great recordings, but as 99% of the stuff recorded in the 70's was literally going through thousands of nasty 553x, clearly the recordings are often the bottleneck :dead:
 
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ah well, 1115 misses the "HD" sound of 1028A and the mids sound VERY colored/distorted.

1028A costs 5X more than most of their other single op-amps anyway..for a good reason?

a friend of mine will send me:
LT1055CN8
LT1056CN8
LT1357CN8
LT1360CN8
LT1122ACN8
Unlike the LT1363, the measured (by Samuel Groner) distortion of the LT1115 is very low. So... less high definition sound than the LT1028 is OK, I found the same...but distorted....😉
 
And colored...😉 It simply has a different color, like all opamps (including LT1028 and AD797).

That said, color wise you've come to a good (neutral) configuration in your card, since AK4396 + AD797 + LT1028 cover all the numbers (thus the colors) save the 5. Casually...just the number the LT1115 is characterized by 😉

So you see...what you hear between the LT1028 and LT1115 is just a difference; with the due consideration that the LT1028 matches the other two chips (DAC & AD797) better. 🙂
 
Didn't 553x come out in '79? If seventies recordings used opamps these would be really bad ones.
what did they have in James Brown recordings mixing consoles for instance? or Rolling Stones? I mostly listen to recordings from the 70's and a lot of them carry a nasty distorted grain :dead:
Unlike the LT1363, the measured (by Samuel Groner) distortion of the LT1115 is very low. So... less high definition sound than the LT1028 is OK, I found the same...but distorted....😉
well, subjective SQ cannot be measured in SNR/THD/IMD and so anyway...

so I've soldered all the mofos: ImageBam

much better SS as usual, the ends of the SS seem to meet each other far more seamlessly, the SS depth has also improved and distortion is noticeably lower...PRaT still seems very high, 1028A is a PRaT killing machine anyway...low end bass is sooo damn percussive! 😱
 
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