10 OpAmps tested with HQ sound demo - Op-Amp Rolling - Find the hidden gem !

10 OpAmps tested with HQ sound demo - Op-Amp Rolling -Find the hidden gem !

In this video I am testing following opamps:

Sparkos 3602, LHY Discrete Double Opa, Parallel NE5532, LT1028, NE5532, Staccato OSH-DHb, Muses 02, Muses 8920, Oracle 02, Burson v7 Vivid, LHY Discrete Double Opa

I record the sound samples with my Schoeps CMC6Mk4 Microphones and 32 Bit Float recorder.
In this video there is the same sound samples played on each of the Op Amps - 1 minute for each sample on each Op Amp

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SYSTEM IN THE VIDEO:

STREAMER: PC with HQ PLAYER for Upsampling to DSD512 on the fly Using Tidal and Roon
DAC: T+A DAC 200
CABLES: Audiomica Excellence USB, VirtualHiFi interconnects and speaker cables
FOOTERS: VirtualHiFi Vibron

My Listening session notes

NE5532 - overall good sound a benchmark for the opamps.

Sparkos - open nice reverbs of strings , rich vocals, nice energy, big precision, good transients speed, Musical character

Parallel ne5532 - Big scale, full rich sound with plenty of definitlion. Great immersion, Big heat generator Overall the best bang for the buck performer ;)

1028 - big scale, Nice well balanced Opamp

LHY Discrete - big bold rich but airy with great detail, big scale big size, analogue but not boring - very impressive, deep soft but controlled bass very musical

Stacatto -rich relaxed analogue, not as wide soundsage but good depth, not the best reverb in the air

Muses 02 - rich, organic, wide, decent soundstage, non aggressive highs, overall good opamp for making sound a bit more relaxed

Muses 8920 - rich but muddy, blurred, little reverb, big vocals.

Burson V7 Vivid - bold wide sound with reverbs, rich vocals, big air, tight bass great first impression quite wide soundstage, precise big vocals, in your face type of sound, musical character

Oracle 02 - nice colour, quite rich, a bit relaxed, full, nice separation nice air in the guitar, great for the price - 7$ Pricetag make it a definite candidate for a test

WARNING !!!!

Here is one comment (Thank you Kraken once again :) with expiation the paralysation of the Opamps, so test it at your own risk ;)

“If he literally just connected the legs of the chips, well, he was lucky. This op-amp survived that.
But don’t rush to accept a simple explanation as a recipe for all occasions. I insist that doing so is not correct. The total current consumption should increase significantly. Connecting the outputs directly is analogous to a short circuit. Most likely, in this design the through current of the output stages of both op-amps has increased significantly. But not to a critical value - operational amplifiers usually have an output current limitation. But increasing the current through the output stage usually has a beneficial effect on quality. In general, there are prerequisites for an increase in quality. But the method is barbaric."

00:00 - OPAMP BATTLE INTRO
01:53 - Track 1 - OPA A
02:53 - Track 1 - OPA B
03:53 - Track 1 - OPA C
04:53 - Track 1 - OPA D
05:53 - Track 1 - OPA E
06:53 - Track 1 - OPA F
07:53 - Track 1 - OPA G
08:53 - Track 1 - OPA H
09:53 - Track 1 - OPA I
10:53 - Track 1 - OPA J
11:54 - YT Compression is update
17:04 - Track 2 - OPA A
18:04 - Track 2 - OPA B
19:04 - Track 2 - OPA C
20:04 - Track 2 - OPA D
21:04 - Track 2 - OPA E
22:04 - Track 2 - OPA F
23:04 - Track 2 - OPA G
24:04 - Track 2 - OPA H
25:04 - Track 2 - OPA I
26:04 - Track 2 - OPA J
27:05 - Track 3 - OPA A
28:05 - Track 3 - OPA B
29:05 - Track 3 - OPA C
30:05 - Track 3 - OPA D
31:05 - Track 3 - OPA E
32:05 - Track 3 - OPA F
33:05 - Track 3 - OPA G
34:05 - Track 3 - OPA H
35:05 - Track 3 - OPA I
36:05 - Track 3 - OPA J
37:05 - Track 4 - OPA A
38:05 - Track 4 - OPA B
39:05 - Track 4 - OPA C
40:05 - Track 4 - OPA D
41:05 - Track 4 - OPA E
42:05 - Track 4 - OPA F
43:05 - Track 4 - OPA G
44:05 - Track 4 - OPA H
45:05 - Track 4 - OPA I
46:05 - Track 4 - OPA J
47:05 - Track 5 - OPA A
48:05 - Track 5 - OPA B
49:05 - Track 5 - OPA C
50:05 - Track 5 - OPA D
51:05 - Track 5 - OPA E
52:05 - Track 5 - OPA F
53:05 - Track 5 - OPA G
54:05 - Track 5 - OPA H
55:05 - Track 5 - OPA I
56:05 - Track 5 - OPA J
57:05 - OPAMP BATTLE Conclusions

[claptrap]

Excellent and helpful video. I wish there were more videos like this where it wasn't just a person talking through their impressions but actually letting us hear what they hear (as best as possible).

[GOLDMUSIC]

Two surprises for me.
1st) The LHY Discrete, overall the best in all aspects, purer analogue amplifier is not possible, bass, mids, highs all there with speed and precision without hardening.
2nd) Parallel ne5532, no comments just one, just perfect sound for the price and much better than other competitors at 10 & 30x the price of this one.

[delatronics]

Interesting video thanks for your efforts. I am an audio electronics engineer and am used to critical listening. IMHO the stand out Op Amps were the LT, Sparkos and Oracle. The LHY was excellent but impractical for the class D chip amps and IMHO not worth it. The NE5532 has always been a firm favourite with me and IMO sounds as good or better than a lot of Burr Brown or Analogue Devices Chips, especially for the price. If you parallel two NE5532 you will reduce the noise and clearly improve the sound, but the fact that they get hot means they are loading the power supply (and this troubles me; probably requires a decoupling capacitor on the power rails). Based on price, I would say the LT or Oracle are winners for me.

[michau_]

Burson v7 Vivid (I) is the best natural sound for me.
Thank you for this big test for us 😀

[mjw]

One of the best Op Amp comparison videos!

[cowboy]

This double opamp is very intresting! Back in the days, about 1975, I was a kid building hifi. At that time we had a magazine in Sweden called Radio and television with a lot of intresting drawings, do it your self things. I found a RIAA pre amp that I built and believe it or not. Designs was a lot of shitty transistors in parallell. In total I should say about 30. My RIAA had clearer sound and sounded better than my Kenwood. It also had a much lower noice level. I have tried to find that RT with no success. RT magazine have som public sources on internet. And yes, this double opamp really works and I was a little skeptic in the beginning but I think the difference is amazing! I can hear it and my hearing is not the best after listening to, to much noice in my childhood 😅. Keep up all the good work!

[Apocrypha]

Thanks so much for doing this. That's a lot of money in op amps for people that just own one of the cheaper amps.

[Simon_Hawkshaw]

Amazing information and comparison between these opamps. Thank you so much for sharing this with us all.

[fredapril]

How did you parallel the NE5532?? Using dual single to dip8 adapter or patiently soldering with an Iron and lead? I'm tempted to do it since I have the chips ...but I doubt soldering is doable for me...shaking the hell out on the iron...Also, I'd be curious to see the results with some Akliam LC5 (18$)

[kittykatking]

Awesome, I love these. Best yet. I thought A was the sparkos, as it seemed to play faster. Found some I would definitely like to try. Thank you for a great effort.

[MichaelBeeny]

NEVER NEVER just put 2 op amps together simply on top of each other. They will get very hot because it makes the chips oscillate and go unstable. You can parallel them, but they do need isolation resistors. Getting hot should be a warning that something is very wrong, think about it!! It could also damage the amplifier by drawing more current than it was designed to do. An average op amp will draw 10mA, some of these so-called discrete chips draw over 50mA. While these all share the same pin outputs, different chips need different compensation components to keep them stable and get the best from them.

[humanitech]

Great overview and then the parallel opamps options adds more questions ....like stacking different makers opamps ...for a sonic cocktail

[dougwilkerson]

Appreciate your efforts and time with this. I currently have A07Max w Eversolo DMP8, Arendal 1961 towers. After looking at many amp reviews and thinking I need to explore tube hybrid AB, I realize I need to explore op amp and upgrade to 48 v 5/10 amp power supply w filers first. So much is intriguing but costly and a pain returning equipment. W electronics I am blown away w class d but other genres less so, recordings clearly vary.

[ColocasiaCorm]

Dude double 5532 was incredible. What a brilliant idea to stack them.

[Scrufboy]

Missing is the king.... The SS2590 dual pro from Sparkos.... I use those in my Preamp and my Geshelli J2 AKM4499EX DAC. Absolutely sublime.

[matytinman]

This time I waited for your conclusions in the video.
I am amazed by the Paralell NE5532. The other one that stands above the rest is the LHY Discrete Double Opa.
In the test you did with the new Fosi V3 mono I liked the Muse02 better, while with the ZA3 mono it was Sparkos.
👉A Paralell Muse02 can be amazing. You should try the same with OPA828.

[dab]

Missing from your magnificent report is the famous SPARKOS LABS SS2590 PRO.
I think you'd be very pleasantly surprised by the quality of these AOP ! 😉

[Scott-DJ]

This video was invaluable because I'm considering a Geshelli DAC and one of their options is the Burson V7 Vivid. Along with Parallel 5532 (which I've never heard of), the only other op-amp I gave a 10 on listening test was the Burson. I had a feeling that would be a sleeper...

What was really interesting is I gave the parallel 5532 a 10 but the single one a 7. Is that modified parallel one available to purchase

[kraken-s]

It's great that you tested everything so quickly!! (paralleling of opamps)

I understood the topic a little and in general this is not entirely correct electrically, what you said about high temperature is precisely a consequence of this. But it sounds!!
also my audio engineer friend commented

“If he literally just connected the legs of the chips, well, he was lucky. This op-amp survived that.
But don’t rush to accept a simple explanation as a recipe for all occasions. I insist that doing so is not correct. The total current consumption should increase significantly. Connecting the outputs directly is analogous to a short circuit. Most likely, in this design the through current of the output stages of both op-amps has increased significantly. But not to a critical value - operational amplifiers usually have an output current limitation. But increasing the current through the output stage usually has a beneficial effect on quality. In general, there are prerequisites for an increase in quality. But the method is barbaric."

so be careful.

[michaelschwader]

I have the Burson V7 Pros upgraded from their V6s. I experimented with the Classics and Vivids.

For my DACs, I experimented with all four Vivids, all four Classics and two Vivids (LP) and Classics (I/V) and vice-versa.

For me, I ultimately settled on the Classics (warmer) in the LP stage (filter stage) and the Vivids (brighter) in the I/V stage (driving stage).

It's a great combo, and it would be neat to see a video by someone experimenting on mixing amps like this instead of just here are the opamps. Enjoy.

This could be a neat video for you. Mixing Sparkos with Muses or LHY with Burson, etc.