fiddler
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2001
- Posts
- 1,930
- Likes
- 30
Bored, not terribly interested in building anything fancy, so wired up another CMOY (my first in like, years and years).
24V switching power supply (yeah I know, but what can I say, I found one in my basement, so it's free! I bet it still sounds better than a single 9V battery), 470uF power caps, uh the rest is standard... ~5X gain. Did it on a perfboard that has no connected busses, so assembly took a bit of time...
Let's plug 'er in... nothing's in the case yet, just using alligator clips on a naked perfboard for this test.
Maiden test with OPA2132 with Ety ER4S, jeeeez how could i forget how sweet a simple CMOY can sound. It's gonna be sure hard to plug the Etys back into an iPod directly... People make fun of this chip for tubby bass, and sure, it's a bit on the loose side, but there's something nice about the overall presentation, a bit of "magic" that is reminiscent of the big boys OPA627/637.
Ok, moving on to the next chip.
[Oh jeez, why did I have to jam into the socket so hard... bent some pins pretty bad pulling it out (it's been a while, you see.)]
Ok so I salvaged the OPA2132 without breaking any pins, yay.
Put in 2227... meh. Kinda boring, dunno what it is, kinda "slow" sounding. Bass might be tighter than 2132, bit more detail in the treble, but that liquidy smoothness isn't quite there. Not likin' it. Moving on.
AD823 - ok, I can sorta see the "house-sound" resemblance to the AD8610. But only sorta. Something kinda hyped up about the midrange, you could say overly lean and bright, false "detail" freaks might like this one. Maybe just terrible synergy with Etys. No way.
Basically I got a "mmm yum" surprise reaction (I mean come on, it's just a CMOY!) with the OPA2132, and these other two chips just didn't have the "magic" to my ears. Sure it has flaws, a bit loose in the bass, and not quite enough clarity as you can get from higher-end chips, but in this contest, for me it was hands down victory to the OPA2132 for enjoyability.
A quote from an old post of mine:
Quote:
Hmmm, it seems I might have highly underrated the OPA2132 back then. Oh well, so things change!
24V switching power supply (yeah I know, but what can I say, I found one in my basement, so it's free! I bet it still sounds better than a single 9V battery), 470uF power caps, uh the rest is standard... ~5X gain. Did it on a perfboard that has no connected busses, so assembly took a bit of time...
Let's plug 'er in... nothing's in the case yet, just using alligator clips on a naked perfboard for this test.
Maiden test with OPA2132 with Ety ER4S, jeeeez how could i forget how sweet a simple CMOY can sound. It's gonna be sure hard to plug the Etys back into an iPod directly... People make fun of this chip for tubby bass, and sure, it's a bit on the loose side, but there's something nice about the overall presentation, a bit of "magic" that is reminiscent of the big boys OPA627/637.
Ok, moving on to the next chip.
[Oh jeez, why did I have to jam into the socket so hard... bent some pins pretty bad pulling it out (it's been a while, you see.)]
Ok so I salvaged the OPA2132 without breaking any pins, yay.
Put in 2227... meh. Kinda boring, dunno what it is, kinda "slow" sounding. Bass might be tighter than 2132, bit more detail in the treble, but that liquidy smoothness isn't quite there. Not likin' it. Moving on.
AD823 - ok, I can sorta see the "house-sound" resemblance to the AD8610. But only sorta. Something kinda hyped up about the midrange, you could say overly lean and bright, false "detail" freaks might like this one. Maybe just terrible synergy with Etys. No way.
Basically I got a "mmm yum" surprise reaction (I mean come on, it's just a CMOY!) with the OPA2132, and these other two chips just didn't have the "magic" to my ears. Sure it has flaws, a bit loose in the bass, and not quite enough clarity as you can get from higher-end chips, but in this contest, for me it was hands down victory to the OPA2132 for enjoyability.
A quote from an old post of mine:
Quote:
I'd take the sound of an AD8620 on a MINT board over an OPA2132 on a META42 board any day. Just my opinion. |
Hmmm, it seems I might have highly underrated the OPA2132 back then. Oh well, so things change!