*WHAT A SCAM!* Budget Pre Amp Vs Built In Turntable Pre Amp BUYER BEWARE!
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- I wanted to compare the budget preamp I bought against the built in preamp on my Audio Technica turntable. When I examined in internal components of the budget preamp I discovered something very fishy going on?
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I soldered a socket and plugged in a TI TL082 in my old Rotel 930AX integrated, These TI chips have a j-fet input and bipolar output. If I remember from 20 years ago. Funny thing in listening, the Made in Mexico chips sounded great but the made in Taiwan was not good at all. Same part number. Why is this?! But the ears don't lie. I Usually unsolder the JRC op amps from junk electronics and save them. The are pretty musical op amps. Used in CD output buffers and headphone amps in most mid priced Japanese. stuff. But the TI-TLO82 is a great sounding chip. And cheap also. - Sandy, The Scot audiophile in America.
The lack of bass makes me wonder if the external pre-amp wasn’t using RIAA equalization while the turntable does have RIAA equalization. Which basically increases the bass and makes the record sound better. When looking for phono pre-amps, look for ones that explicitly say they have RIAA EQ.
this is exactly it, no RIAA EQ circuit at all in that external thing. just a couple of power filter caps and an opamp to boost the volume.
Most, if not all, of the cheaper "tube" pre-amps use the Tubes as a buffer. They still add the characteristics of the tubes, such as the desirable harmonics, but they are not true tube amps. Fosi Audio Box x2, Little Bear T7 and other similar ones are all the same. They only use the tubes as a buffer. Unfortunately, like a lot of other cheap end Chineseum products, it is very hit and miss. You may get one that sounds great, or you may get one that barely works.
I got one that sounds great but I upgraded the tubes
I have the Fosi audio tube P1 preamp , well I would not say its fantastic but it is not bad either , for the 50$ it is OK, you can swap the 6K4 tubes with GE JAN5654 and try.
And I just bought original FX-Audio Tube-01 2nd hand for 40€, very happy. They don't make those anymore so... Just swap the tubes and at least film capacitors to better and do some soldering ecause at keast in my unit, there is cold joints etc. Also a better Power supply is good. Tube01 doesnt have any op amps, Tube 03 has 2 op amps but can be used without the op amps too. There is similar units from other manufacturers.
Try the Fosi Audio Box X2 tube-based pre-amp. For the price, it's exceptionally good.
These are also not a true tube pre-amplifier. They use the tubes as a buffer. :)
Hi , I believe there might be a note on the specification saying specification may change without notice.
But must admit it's a bit of a dodgy trick.
Rather than send it back it would be cool to compare the 2 different chips, see if that makes any difference. For around £8 you can buy a much better one with a different style op amp but it's a module. you have to wire it into the amp. They claim it is better than the NE5532 (possibly an 8 pin NJM4558L). It has dc or ac input, there are 2 versions, one with better caps.
That looks like a DIP-8 socket so you can op-amp roll. I'm surprised it sounds so poor. I've used the NE5532 in different settings and have found it a good op-amp, particularly for bass, but it does depend on the way it is implemented in the circuit. I wonder if that one is a fake.
The problem might be that the RIAA equalization is done by the sorrounding circuitry, and if that's not designed well enough, it won't sound good, even if that op-amp would be fine.....
The 4556 is a kind of specialty op-amp, with high current capacity output. It is not particularly good (or bad) at anything else. If you want to use an op-amp to drive headphones, the 4556 could be an option. You might want a couple of them in parallell though, unless your headphones are reasonably high-impedance.
A Genuine 5532 is about three times better except for the output current capacity, despite being a third of the price. It has lower noise (about half) above 100Hz than the 4556, roughly three times the full swing bandwidth on the output, 5-7 times the closed loop bandwidth at 40dB gain and so on. It might not be adequate for driving a headphone output, unless you know that the headphones will be high impedance, like 600 ohms or more (not that common, but there are some).
In this video, the difference is not demonstrated with headphones, though, but with the preamp connected to the line input of a power amplifier, so the switch from 4556 to 5532 will not affect the sound because of the lower current drive capability of the latter.
The more likely reason for the difference in sound is that the RIAA-correction filter in the preamp is not accurate (or at least they are not the same in the turntable built in preamp and the external one). That would make the base as well as high frequencies sound different, as mentioned and as it sounds like in the video.
It might possibly be a fake 5532 too, in other words, one that is marked 5532 but does not perform even close to the normal datasheet specifications of a NE5532.
If it were a genuine Texas Instruments, ONsemi or Nexperia NE5532, the RIAA-filter was accurate in both the turntable and external preamp, and the preamp was connected to speakers and not headphones, it should not be distinguishable from a genuine 4556 by ear in a blind test, but the better bandwidth and speed of the 5532 might give it a measurable advantage in the highest frequencies (less phase nonlinearity).
Interesting information. 4560 is quite good OP-amp too, can be compared to the 5532, do you think? Picked up some real JRC4560 from old mixer. Too bad too many fake op amps everywhere today especially 5532's and expensive ones.
ART Pro Audio DJPRE II try this one and dont plug into your speakers directly, plug it in to an amplifier or avr
Preamp sounds shit, turntable amp definitely better, great video 👍
The NJM4556 headphone amplifier op amp chip, which does not advertise low noise, has an open loop gain of 100 dB (typ). For RIAA bass amplification with MC you need 80 dB. The “over” amplification factor is therefore only 2 (min) to 10 times. That's what I call hard feedback.🤣Since the RIAA characteristic curve is obviously extremely missed, it doesn't do much good for MM (23 mA = not for Headphone) to retrofit an LM4562 NA (€2.30). MC with only one OP amp is always fake.
You don't hear the word nefarious very often on the old CZcams.
Not sure why but it was the first word that came to mind? I've never used it before and probably never again! 😃
I think main reason is fake op amp. Schematic probably fine. But looking at marking of that op amp I'm 99% sure it is a fake. I know because i have fake NE555 and LM358 chips from China and original ones and their markings looks similar to one you have installed. If you didn't returned it back you can try replace it with any original TL071, 4558, 5532 or with even better ones LME49720 and LM4562. It would be nice experiment. And share it with viewers. Any way this device is a bit of overpriced. Again thats only my opinion.
LME49720/LM4562 works great in phono preamp.
So, in one words, do not buy Budget Pre Amp , it did nothing just for looking more pro than internal one?
Yes exactly.
@@UTILITARIANTVUK Ty! Did che cheap tube pre-amp do something like give some tube sound at least?
@@rin05099 If it is cheap Pre Amp, it is cheap Pre Amp, better off with your built in Pre Amp. However, if you dont have a built in Pre Amp, and your turntable is not high end, obviously a budget pre amp will do. I have a decent system, and the Art phone amps are great. And they have a gain knob with LED indicator, if a record is low, turn it up a bit. No dip switches to deal with .
@@Brian-qg8dg thanks for the reply! Base on my personal exp,even cheaper one is better than my built one(LP-120).But cannot tell that works for others folks.
A real NE5532 would probably sound fine, but most are fake coming from China, All the ones in any close up on Chinese boards or loose chips show the same lot number - which happens to be the same lot as the cheap fakes I bought on the bay. I'm sure the 4558? would also be fake.
The problem is many fake 5532 pass the multimeter test. Clones?
Report this to Trading Standards
Couldn't hear you because of the stupid music at the beginning
I was talking about pointless comments about stupid music. 😄
The echo in the voice and the loud background "music" make it too hard to listen to this video. No subscription from me today.
😞