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0 pointscpach5y ago0 comments

Are there good and cheap alternatives? (Asking out of curiosity, I know almost nothing about this kind of hardware.)

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6 comments · 1 top-level

dragontamer5y ago· 5 in thread

Chip costs are pretty low, all else considered. Yeah, AD is more expensive but I spend way less time reading documentation.

If you're a hobbyist like me, you don't really care about spending $5 on a chip instead of $2 on a chip... especially when you're paying multiples of that for the PCB and other parts of the equation.

jeffbee5y ago

Part of the fun of hobby building is you can design your stuff any way you want. Maybe nobody will mass-produce an audio preamp with $20 opamps inside, but you can DIY one if you feel like it.

I built a digital audio interface with an ADI ultra-low-noise clock generator. It was a $20 part. That's a ridiculous price but it's also only $20.

formerly_proven5y ago

Also especially for audio stuff it's not like all op amps have to be high spec. At the edge (input/output) components matter much more than inside the circuit, where levels and impedances can be designed in. A low-noise BiFET op amp makes a ton of sense for pre-amp, but as a generic buffer or whatever amplifier between stages, not so much. Even in 2020 a NE5532 is a fine choice in those places.

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boojums5y ago

Do you have any information on your digial audio interface you can share? Seems like an interesting project.

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joezydeco5y ago

I'm working on a pretty expensive piece of measurement equipment and the $12 AD7193 I'm using seems expensive until you see how crazy accurate this thing is. It's worth every penny.

flywheel5y ago

Hobbyists don't make up even a tiny sliver of their revenue. And if you're a hobbyist and paying any money at all for Analog Devices (or other semiconductor manufacturer's parts) then you're kinda doing it wrong - most of them have free samples:

https://www.analog.com/en/support/customer-service-resources...

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