For Humor post the picture in the real or fake thread. See how many think they are fakes!
I seldom see people using LM3886T, maybe because TF is easier to mount. Next time definitely i'll try to source couple of T package if everything becomes normal again.
yeah, it seems you haven’t gauged your audience well. You would think that here, where the time and skill involved in all aspects of the supply chain should be known and appreciated; it still becomes all about money. Why should Asia care about our lofty ideals of intellectual property, when clearly it matters not to the customer.
that being said, they clearly won’t understand the full picture, until the entire high performance linear audio chip supply chain becomes untenable and ceases to exist. That is before we even talk about the self indulgences allowed designers in the 80’s-90’s when those in charge, were one and the same, or at least speaking such a different language to the bean counters, they needn’t worry.
im not sure such conditions will ever exist again in/for audio. Some other field of endeavour/ will have its turn.
Also, I guess most (stable) things exhibit low THD inside a closed low distortion loop and don’t need to use something high performance with that placement. If the control loop is good.
Not all will share that view; nor should they need to.
As a small manufacturer, I couldn´t care less about who made the chip or what´s inside, for me (and I guess to most designers, at least commercial ones) it is a "black box", which is fed "X" V rails, gets signal in and can supply expected voltage and current swing into a load, period.
Whether its distortion is 0.2% , 0.002% or 0.00000000000002% is irrelevant to end user, who will NOT hear any difference.
Same whether response is 20Hz to 20kHz , 2Hz to 200kHz or 0.2Hz to 2MHz.
Of course, as you point out, it is stable, and I add: does not overheat or explode or limits current to less than needed.
Given that (otherwise it´s useless), yes, price and availability becomes THE key parameter, why not?
PS: and yes, the control loop will be good, what´s more linear than 2 resistors and 1 capacitor?
PS2: resistor/capacitor/cable/solder/UFO fanatics and acolytes do not need to reply 😉
Fake?? I don't think so...and yes, was way cheaper than digikey & mouser (don't ask how? 
). But the situation has changed! Now it is almost impossible to get original lm3886 here in indian market.
). But the situation has changed! Now it is almost impossible to get original lm3886 here in indian market.Attachments
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Sounds excellent & inbuilt spike protection circuitry works like a charm! Very robust performance! Then(around 2017-19) the price was little more than $3 each. I made many stereos for my friends & till now not a single failure. That's why i'm 100% sure that i have the originals. Anyway i still regret for not buying some non-insulated package 
NanoFarad, I am a little bit confused , are you thinking that your chips shown in post 186 are not authentic?
Where did you get these chips?
Except the logo, the letters and the digits look different than the ones found on authentic lm3886TF chips. Maybe with the new batches Texas instruments decided to make some changes.
I have broken my UTC TDA2050L to see die inside
Here is the video link, can't upload here due to diyaudio don't allow it for bigger files to upload
Thanks vipin for this informative post. But this thread is about lm3886, if you can then share some info about that.
Best Regards.
Best Regards.
I have LM3886TF ICs but no failure yet, with them and you know it's very difficult to get LM3886TF these days, so I can't just break open my LM3886TF,
Although I have pictures of die LM3886TF from Facebook, John Widhi
Can't say what was wrong with ICs, but they looked very suspicious due to lot code and date code format of National Semiconductor, although NS had 4 digits coding format too,so can't judge it ,but no one in right in the head broke open their ICs without any failure
Disclaimer: I don't own these pictures, and these pictures are very old, about 5 years or something similar
was expecting the same line 🤣
I'm with you
Old batch of 3886 had white colour printing...but most fakes are the same type too & yet to see a laser marked fake. So it's hard to know which one is original.
Edit- but those 3886 looks legit to me (post 196)
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Can't say unless cause of failure or conditions are known to us.
Well they looked Original indeed,
Probably he destroyed one using hammer to see if its original or not. As far as i know he is a professional diy enthusiast.