New face in op amp industry

[Veri]

I do own Khadas tone board and E1DA 9038D.I do prefer your dac,as I use it with headphone amplifier.My question is, fiio is using this op amp in Ka 3 usb dac.Why is this op amp a bad choice for headphone amplification ? None of the reviews ,both subjective and objective mention it is bad performing.

If you don't drive it into clipping you wouldn't notice the "ugly" behavior mentioned.

 

[IVX]

yeah, but for the HPA it's literally impossible to avoid clipping at low impedance headphones. I remember one russian complained about loud crackling noise when he played loud music on W2 DAC luxury-precision. A bit lower volume and rasping is gone. I guess there is RT6863 as well.
All are clean with 9038D(Ti opamp) or maybe he had 9038S(AD opamp).

 

[LTig]

I did not change my opinion I do confirm an ugly clipping behavior of that opamp, and I'll never use that as an output stage for the headphones amp for that reason. Also, that opamp has a fragile-unprotected input stage and its manufacturer recommend adding zeners there to clamp input at 5V or so. Hence, I'll never use that as an input stage as well. The ugly clipping is the sign of a low phase-margin, and in fact, I wasn't able to get a stable work that opamp in the composite configuration. So, this opamp is only suitable in my particular device as a buffer after the notch-filter, I see no another role for that.

Anybody keen to opamp rolling should read this post and think hard.

 

[Njoy]

yeah, but for the HPA it's literally impossible to avoid clipping at low impedance headphones. I remember one russian complained about loud crackling noise when he played loud music on W2 DAC luxury-precision. A bit lower volume and rasping is gone. I guess there is RT6863 as well.
All are clean with 9038D(Ti opamp) or maybe he had 9038S(AD opamp).

It's not a guess ,W2 dac does use RT6863.So does Moondrop moonriver 2,Hiby fc5 and Shanling UA5.All these usb dacs are expensive.Is using Texas instruments op amps that difficult?
Any chance of making a usb dac with op amp,like a lower version of 9038D ? I mean by not using expensive components used in 9038D.Most people listen to usb dacs with out separate headphone driver is totally wrong.They are best used with headphone amplifier with no load.

 

[IVX]

Njoy, I'm not sure if understand your question. Do you think $100 is too much for 9038D but $300 ok for w2? Or are you asking about the way to make 9038D even cheaper?

 

[Njoy]

Njoy, I'm not sure if understand your question. Do you think $100 is too much for 9038D but $300 ok for w2? Or are you asking about the way to make 9038D even cheaper?

No,price of 9038D is good.I think I read somewhere that you stopped the production of 9038D because of certain parts used in the product became expensive.

 

[IVX]

yes, so far unacceptably expensive OPA1602 which has a very low consumption current and Ok noise performance at the same time. I can replace that with OPA1612 which is 5x cheaper today but the idle current of the DAC will be too high for me.
BTW, I tried SGM8261(the silicon looks 100% like RT6863) instead of OPA1602 but I got worse SNR and a lot higher idle current as well. OPA1602 normal price was about $.9, RT6863 something around $.7.

 

[Veri]

yes, so far unacceptably expensive OPA1602 which has a very low consumption current and Ok noise performance at the same time.

Price has gone up due to supply chain issues? Or?

 

[IVX]

the global silicon crisis, Ti still didn't fil OPA1602 storage, OPA1612, and for many others Ti has storage.

 

[Sonny73n]

View attachment 128660
And actually, both opamps are the same junk

I know this thread is old but I've been researching the components of the Shanling UA5 and came across this thread. So I created an account just to clarify some of troubles I saw in your comments.
You're saying the Ricore RT6863 is junk but the reviews I found for the UA5 say otherwise. The UA5 has dual high end ESS DAC chips. Why would Shanling engineers implement these high end chips with Ricore amplifier "junks"? Do you have anything to back your claim?

 

[Veri]

Why would Shanling engineers implement these high end chips with Ricore amplifier "junks"? Do you have anything to back your claim?

He's already explained a couple of times though that IVX is not a fan of the supposedly 'nasty' clipping behaviour when you overdrive these RT amps. As long as that doesn't happen it's fine but I understand the concern.

 

[Sonny73n]

View attachment 128660
And actually, both opamps are the same junk

He's already explained a couple of times though that IVX is not a fan of the supposedly 'nasty' clipping behaviour when you overdrive these RT amps. As long as that doesn't happen it's fine but I understand the concern.

I need specific details how RT6863 causes clipping to help my decision on purchasing the Shanling UA5. All the reviews of the UA5 on YouTube did not mention the problems of the RT6863 amp.
I really like the UA5. It's on sale for $176 on musicteck. Should I skip the UA5 and look for something else? If so, do you have any recommendation of a good portable DAC/Amp for ATH-M40x and ATH-MSR7 in $200 range?

 

[solderdude]

When all reviews are positive of the UA5 then it really does not matter what chip is in there.
It basically is a black box that seems to work satisfactory and maybe it is used in a way that it can never clip or buffered somehow.

 

[Mnyb]

As usual implementation is everything , I don't have the specific knowledge many other forum members have.

I think i just passed the peak in the duning kruger curve so i would not ever participate in op amp roling in any product (if you aren't competent enough to design the whole board you should not change a single component imo ) . And i would also like to think that the UA5 designers used the chip knowing it's limitations ?

 

[IVX]

I need specific details how RT6863 causes clipping to help my decision on purchasing the Shanling UA5. All the reviews of the UA5 on YouTube did not mention the problems of the RT6863 amp.
I really like the UA5. It's on sale for $176 on musicteck. Should I skip the UA5 and look for something else? If so, do you have any recommendation of a good portable DAC/Amp for ATH-M40x and ATH-MSR7 in $200 range?

like that:

that pic I've got from one discord member but I saw the same if not even worse at real headphones. These pare of clicks on the top of the wave is very clearly noticeable in any music.

 

[Sonny73n]

Thanks Veri, solderdude, Mnyb and especially IVX for your replies and helpful infos. I guess I'll just have to give up on the urge of purchasing the UA5. To think that Shanling would opt for cheaper amp just to save a few bucks (the opa1612 is less than $8 a piece), they've made a very poor decision by jeopardizing the performance of otherwise a great product. I still can't believe the level of bias from tech review sites and YouTubers, all bought and paid for. No doubt Shanling has their hands in it. Fortunately there is forum like this exists.

I'm still looking for a portable or small desktop DAC/amp in $200-$300 range. Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Mnyb]

IVX and PMA and JohnYang1997 , SIY etc are some of the people here than can design stuff . I'm just here to chat and don't realy contribute to mass of knowledge here

 

[solderdude]

It does not seem to perform very problematic but then again, @WolfX-700 did not show the wave form at clipping and he measured the actual product at low impedances.

Measurements of ShanLing UA5 Portable DAC/HPAmp - L7Audiolab

便携设备 之前另一个测评UP主咨询过我一些这个 ShanLing UA5 的问题，考虑到这台小尾巴在那么小的体积下还带了电池（这挺新鲜）我就通过自己的渠道从网友手里借了一台，做一下验证测量

www.l7audiolab.com

In any case right up to the clipping point it performs very good for a dongle IMHO. It would certainly not stop me from buying it if I would like the looks, features and price.
It may only start to sound less nice at clipping levels than some similar powered dongles at clipping levels. As there are no measurements showing problematic clipping behavior we can only reason or guess it might do this.

 

[Jimster480]

I bought a Fiio KA13 and it sounds great, according to FiiO it has measurements of 111 SINAD and its using the SGM8262 Op-Amps. I have no complaints about this module at this point in time.

 

[IVX]

I made a better-quality die comparison of sgm vs rt, now you can see it is 100% the same thing.