$50 DAC with swappable opamps paired with WIIM MINI run through WOPL 400 and PL3300 preamp.

[VSAT88]

I looked over at Digikey, I have an account of course. They don't want but like 20.00 for three shipped cut tape so I figured I will buy them and compare them physically to the ones from Ali. Just see. As you all said with a little more reading and research I see these are Brown Burr chips, Texas Instruments. They are manufactured in USA not in China. They never made them at all in China so getting them from there they are almost definitely fugazi. Anyhow, I will have the adapters from those and if they are acceptable I can use them with the Digikey op amps if I decide to do it. Thank you guys for alerting me to this. Fact is I figured everything, I mean just about everything electronic was made in China anymore so I never even considered that the op amps may be fake. Live and learn.

 

[TimD]

I guess the way it's going if I don't learn to solder SMD to adapters and such I ain't gonna be working on about Jack shit soon anyway. Thanks for the link.

There is always the joy of working on pure surface mount . . . 0402 and 0603 series resistors and such (al least to me) feel like replacing the testicles on a friut fly, bit it can be done.

 

[mlucitt]

Everything is getting smaller... Pretty soon you will need a microscope to work on electronics. By then, most of us will be gone.

 

[VSAT88]

I bought one of those microscopes with the LED screen and it was not all that terrible expensive either. Doesn't matter if I can't hold my hands still enough from shaking while I try to do the job and that is my problem now. Medication I have taken for years has my hands shaking. About the time I grew up enough to afford the equipment to do the work I always wanted to be able to do now I am in too bad of shape to do it. However, some days are better than others and if I ain't off in my fucking head somewhere on a day my hand are cooperative then I heat up the iron. I ain't gonna lie, I admire the hell out of you guys that can do this electronic and mechanical work on all these amplifiers and tape decks. I am fucking jealous of you too.

 

[J!m]

Just build a few watches and these don’t seem so small…

 

[TimD]

. . . . testicles on a fruit fly . . . .

 

[laatsch55]

I ain't messed with it yet. My state ain't been all that great and rentals been down needing repairs plus cars/trucks Lee. Messing around with small stuff like this is all. Both Ashley's are still sitting here right next to me in the office eyeballing me every day saying what's up with you dude?

Avery rewarding project, and i undsrstand the tims, money, motivation thing.

 

[VSAT88]

Digikey op amp order will arrive on Monday. Guess what I have here that arrived yesterday... Genuine Chinese OPA1656's. They did not even have the decency to put a number or letter behind the OPA 1656*** such as. Straight up fakes. Even have a little Texas state logo printed on them. I will post images of the real deal when they arrive. If I had not been told I would have popped these right in and never even thought about it at all. So, thanks again. Also have a look at what the net says about the real op amps, where they are manufactured and by who.

 

[Gepetto]

Digikey op amp order will arrive on Monday. Guess what I have here that arrived yesterday... Genuine Chinese OPA1656's. They did not even have the decency to put a number or letter behind the OPA 1656*** such as. Straight up fakes. Even have a little Texas state logo printed on them. I will post images of the real deal when they arrive. If I had not been told I would have popped these right in and never even thought about it at all. So, thanks again. Also have a look at what the net says about the real op amps, where they are manufactured and by who.

Me thinks that your AI is hallucinating on you...

 

[VSAT88]

Me thinks that your AI is hallucinating on you...

Joe, care to elaborate? I don't understand your post. I looked up the TI/BB OPA 1656 (google) just to see if any were ever produced over in China (perhaps by license?) and that is the info that came up, yeah it was AI.

 

[VSAT88]

@Sunnbobb where did you source your OPA 1656's please.

 

[Gepetto]

Joe, care to elaborate? I don't understand your post. I looked up the TI/BB OPA 1656 (google) just to see if any were ever produced over in China (perhaps by license?) and that is the info that came up, yeah it was AI.

Hallucination is when AI doesn't know and just makes things up to give you an answer. You have to be very careful about AI lying to you. Often it stitches a story together based on some real facts about related items but the leap it takes in doing that is false.

I yell at AI frequently for making stuff up. It comes back to me all contrite but presents yet another fake story it made up.

 

[VSAT88]

Lol, ok got ya. I wish I knew a way to turn that shit off. That is just what came up and I took a picture of what it said. I read a few places other than that that said those op amps were made in USA and not made in China so I still think I were sent three from Ali that are not genuine. I trust Digikey as much as I trust any company out there, I have never had a trouble out of them and I think when the package arrives on Monday I will have genuine parts. I will look both sets over and take some pictures and post them. I put the AliBaba ones in anyhow just to listen to them. Checked for DC on the outputs first and found nothing that would alarm me. They seem to sound fine. I do not have a distortion analyzer and really do not think as I said before that I can hear good enough to catch a huge difference between op amps anyway so... Away we go. Thanks

 

[TimD]

I seem to recall DigiKey showing tariff amounts on offshore sourced parts, and I am not seeing that on these, which may be the most accurate indicator of being a US made/sourced part of all. (Or perhaps current stock is located in the US.)

 

[Gepetto]

Many TI Burr Brown parts are made in Malaysia. The Burr Brown OPA134s that I purchased directly from TI have the marking 36AYT6K

3 6 AYT6 K = Y M LC Site

Meaning 2023, June, Lot Code AYT6, Malaysia

It appears that TI does not have current US assembly sites for their parts, at least their jellybean parts

 

[mlucitt]

The fake parts are typically lower quality, lower cost parts that have the same pinout and operational characteristics. They use slave labor to wipe the original P/Ns from the components and restamp them with semi-official looking corporate logos and top quality P/Ns.
Don't ask me how I know this...

 

[Gepetto]

I bought one of those microscopes with the LED screen and it was not all that terrible expensive either. Doesn't matter if I can't hold my hands still enough from shaking while I try to do the job and that is my problem now. Medication I have taken for years has my hands shaking. About the time I grew up enough to afford the equipment to do the work I always wanted to be able to do now I am in too bad of shape to do it. However, some days are better than others and if I ain't off in my fucking head somewhere on a day my hand are cooperative then I heat up the iron. I ain't gonna lie, I admire the hell out of you guys that can do this electronic and mechanical work on all these amplifiers and tape decks. I am fucking jealous of you too.

What markings are on your Aliexpress parts?

 

[VSAT88]

I will snake em back outta there and see about getting a picture of one of them. If not, record the numbers and post them.

 

[VSAT88]

Images of the OP1656s from Ali and did a bit of house cleaning while I was in there. Very naughty leaving the board that filthy... However, I still think I got a hell of a deal at 39.95. It really does sound nice. For that price and this sound I have no problem doing a bit of house work.

 

[Gepetto]

Images of the OP1656s from Ali and did a bit of house cleaning while I was in there. Very naughty leaving the board that filthy... However, I still think I got a hell of a deal at 39.95. It really does sound nice. For that price and this sound I have no problem doing a bit of house work.

Should have the BB logo instead of the TI logo (TI owns and uses the BB logo on BB parts), and I do not see that on those parts.