Too cheap??

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wintermute

wintermute

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#1
I was considering building a P3A amp, and wanted to get an idea of the cost. did some searching on various transistors and found some very large differences in cost for MJL21193/4

all one off prices.

Farnell $15.90 AUS
Jaycar $8.95 AUS
Digikey $5.83 US (approx $7.60 AUS not considering shipping)
Futurlec $3.86

I also looked at LM3886 chips and found futurlec MUCH cheaper as well, by similar amounts ($4.66 compared to about $15 at others).

So my question is, is the futurlec price too good to be true?? are they likely to be counterfeit????

Also anyone know anywhere in Aus that I can get MJE15032/3??

edit: also if anyone knows where in Australia the MJL4281A and MJL4302A, MJE15034/MJE15035 can be sourced that would be great... only place I have found them so far is digikey, and shipping increases the cost quite a bit.

Tony.
 
#2
Different places mark up the prices different amounts. I know that in the states, Jameco charge(s/d) marks up their prices an absurd amount. Perhaps the vendors you're looking at do that as well? If the ocmpany is listed as a distributor for the part, you can probably rest assured that it's not counterfeit.
 
#3
Thanks Motherone.

They aren't listed as a supplier on onsemi's web site but one thing I did notice was that the budgetary price on their site is $2.88 which is single unit price, so I guess that is pretty close to Futurlecs price when exchange rate is taken into consideration. looks like it may be the same situation as you described in the US. Could be a case of the others charging what the market will bear (or will pay if they don't know any better) 🙂

Tony.
 
#5
I've had no problems with Futurlec. They don't keep a large range of items and my orders have been sent from Thailand where I guess labour costs are low, so they can undercut the big boys in the UK & USA.

Also from the 'top' firms I get an individual packet for each different item with a printed label; Futurlec I get a hand-written plastic bag at best.

Best feature is they'll ship anywhere in the world, cheap.
 
#8
perhaps -- the one parent company does have several URL's. For reference, here's the one I use:
http://www.futureelectronics.com/

they are an OEM distributor. All my dealings with Future-Active have been first rate. I have bought transistsors, diodes, opto-electronics, Luxeon etc., from them with no problem. As I said, however, if you want to buy MJL21193 you have to buy 25 pieces from Future-Active.

fwiw, global priority mail from the US to OZ and NZ is only 5 USD.
 
#11
I'm not sure about that. I think we do have to pay GST (10%) but I don't know if there is a limit.

I bought some mic capsules from digikey was about $30 US but didn't have to pay any GST.

Good thing is that there is a futurlec office here in aus 🙂 so I can pay australian dollars and orders under $50 have only $4 postage 🙂

Now I just have to find out what other goodies I can get from them 😉

Tony.
 
#12
wintermute said:

edit: also if anyone knows where in Australia the MJL4281A and MJL4302A, MJE15034/MJE15035 can be sourced that would be great... only place I have found them so far is digikey, and shipping increases the cost quite a bit.

Tony.
Click to expand...


Hi Tony,

you can get "MJL4281A and MJL4302A, MJE15034/MJE15035 " from OnSemi within their sample program.

http://www.onsemi.com/

They will charge you for shipping, 11.00 USD for the states and I believe 15.00 for international. There has been some talk lately on 'sample program abuse' but personally I believe if you order just what you need and share the results Onsemi benefits from the exposure.

Stan
 
#13
Thanks Stan,

I wondered about that, but I did think that I would potentially be abusing the system.... I'm not a student, and don't work in the electronics industry......

There is one hitch though and that is that I chucked in my job, and I'm having an extended holiday 🙂 and they require company name and company email address in order to register to get samples, so I'm kinda stuffed there 🙂.....

I'm thinking what I might do is make a P3A with cheap locally available transistors, and once I have it going (and I'm happy with it), I'll buy the better transistors.

Tony.
 
#15
sklimek said:
Great Tony, good luck w/ the P3A. Did you see this link?

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=280546#post280546

Best - Stan
Click to expand...


Yeah I did 🙂 that was a very informative thread 🙂

I've reached a point in my speaker project where I'm going to need a new amp because I will be bi-amping and the P3a looks like a nice option. what I really like about it is the fact that the PS should be much cheaper than my existing amp because of the lower voltage (existing amp requires 75V caps minimum.....) and If I really want to I can also build a gainclone and run it off the same PS!! (35V one) just to compare without the expense of having to build yet another PS.

Tony.
 
#17
Futurlec ordering

I ordered from them a little while ago and I have no reason to
complain. I only ordered some passive components, very cheap,
especially 1% resistors (2 cents each) and I was happy with the
stuff. I plan to order more in the future as the need arises.
 
#18
Well I didn't end up getting anyt transistors, I got a couple of LM3886TF's instead and made a gainclone, delivery took about 3 weeks, but the chips were genuine, and worked nicely. Interestingly they have LM3886T listed, but TF's were what shipped.

I also bought some speaker binding posts but they were really cheap, and it showed when I got them, the other problem was that I ordered them with 32mm shafts and probably 30% of them were only 25mm shafts, couldn't be bothered sending them back as the postage would have been more than they cost! The binding posts were poor quality (which I should have guessed from the 70c Aus price). I ended up getting some much better quality ones from a us based company.

The order is shipped out of Thailand and takes a while, so if you aren't in a hurry then I think its pretty good value, at least for the active components 🙂 I also got some verro board which is reasonable quality.

Tony.
 
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