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Comment by bratwurst3000 | Hacker News Reader

i build and repair audio electronics and the tl071 is used in abundance in audio circuits and is a bad choice imho. But good opamps for audio are at least a few dollars

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If you want the mirror the OpAmp distortion from the original units for authenticity/character, it makes sense to use the TL071, no?

Based on my experience with vintage music electronics, it wouldn’t be good enough to use a component that just sounds bad like a TL071; it needs to be a TL071 so that the marketing copy can claim “vintage-correct parts.”

At that point you are engineering with a completely different set of tradeoffs than would be expected for a modern ground-up design effort.

thats true. I forgot to mention i mean electronics from mid 90s onward. Even in higher class electronics. for example many of those 2000 euro upwards dj mixer use tl071 and even high end dac and soundcards.

I replaced some of them with good opas and burrbrown opamps and for me it made , even if not big, audible changes to the better. But this could be my imagination.

whatever i prefere some opamps in the range from 2-4 bucks. even if its only for the feeling…didnt measure it.

I have an M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496 PCI sound card somewhere. The circuit board has an 8-pin socket with a replaceable op-amp. Why does a stereo sound card have only a single operational amplifier? This sound card already sounds very nice, but what kind of op-amp would I replace it with if I wanted to upgrade it?

If it's an 8-pin socket, that's perhaps for a dual op-amp.

thats nice and rare. Some modern dac have also this feature to please audiophiles. It seems to be an dualopamp. look up your opamp and if you are not happy with it you could replace it with a burr brown opa from texas instruments. I dont have your specific opamp so I cant give a specific recommendation but those audio opamps from burrbrown are fine.

For any consumer use to play back audio I can't image a scenario where TL071 wouldn't be enough. And you'd rarely even need an op-amp when integrated solutions are available.

Any suggestion for a (reasonably) good and cheap one for new designs?

The book "Small Signal Audio Design" by Douglas Self has an entire 50 pages chapter on selecting opamps for audio. The chapter roughly ends with this quote:

> One thing is obvious — the 5532 is still one of the great opamp bargains of all time.

i like the opa2134 pa , or in general the bur brown opa, on the expensive site and on the cheap one the ne5534.

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