LM833 vs NE5532

[Mark Hammer]

Some of you may be familiar with the power amplifier project that was in Elektor several years back, using a squadron of paralleled NE5534 (or 5532, I forget which) op-amps for power.  And I suppose a number of you have often seen NE5532 chips used for headphone amps in mixers and such.  In both instances, the chip drive the speakers/headphones directly, without any other power device as translator/intermediary.

Received an order of LM833s from China today.  For audio purposes, these seem to be relatively interchangeable with the 5532.  Setting aside completely the possibility that they might be duds or relabelled fakes (I haven't tested them yet), could the LM833 be used in similar fashion to the NE5532, such that a small handful could be paralleled to drive a small monitor speaker?

[danfrank]

The 5532 can drive lowish impedance loads directly, like 600 ohms. That's why studio gear loves using the 5532.
The 833 is a better spec op amp but won't drive low impedance loads as well as a 5532.
You may have to parallel more of them to drive a low impedance load.
Why not use a LM386?

[anotherjim]

In the widely copied CMoy headphone amp circuit, I have seen reports of stacked pairs of LM833 being tried. Directly stacked too, though the outputs ought to have separate mixing resistors (say 10R) and still restricted to high impedance headphones (30R or more)
There is a lot of stuff about those CMoys out there - almost like the plethora of Fuzz Face sub-species.

[Mark Hammer]

The 5532 can drive lowish impedance loads directly, like 600 ohms. That's why studio gear loves using the 5532.
The 833 is a better spec op amp but won't drive low impedance loads as well as a 5532.
You may have to parallel more of them to drive a low impedance load.
Why not use a LM386?

Fair question.  Two reasons:
1) I have a bunch of 386s but wanted to try something different; especially since I bought way too many of the 833s.
2) I have some little speakers I built, using loudspeakers excised from old Macintosh computers.  Nice little 2" full-range drivers with BIG magnets and a foam surround, but with a nominal 64ohm impedance.  I'd like to be able to throw a couple of watts at them.  Nothing THAT substantial, but enough for nice background music.

[antonis]

What danfrank said..

15R for 5532 vs 27R for 833 output resistor(s) value..

[PRR]

> such that a small handful

I'd say "a large handful". Except:

> nominal 64ohm impedance

Ah. That's different. (Are you sure?)

2 Watts in 64r is 11V 0.176A or 15V 0.25A peak.

HUH! They took Output current off the spec sheet! The text-spec says "Output current (Typ) (mA) 29". To get 250mA you need 9 opamps (5 chips), per channel, not a huge handful.

One chip/ch makes as much power as the pocket transistor radios of our youth, and +/-5V is ample.

[Rob Strand]

Another +1 for what danfrank said.

IMHO, there's point where parallel opamps is quite wasteful.   You would be better off with an output booster (but then there's more design issues to consider).

When you start using parallel opamps it's not just the current capability you have to consider but also the device power dissipation.

You get a gold star for using output resistors (like many reverb drive circuits),
https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/archives/b/thesignal/posts/paralleling-op-amps-is-it-possible
https://ggianluca.wixsite.com/opamplifier

[iainpunk]

i was instantly reminded of this part of the data sheet of my (currently) favourite opamp.



it works with 4000 series logic as well, either using inverters (unbuffered) or a CD4007 array

cheers

[anotherjim]

And the CMOS have a relatively high output impedance per inverter so you don't have to give them output resistors and the pairs in a single chip are closely matched.

[iainpunk]

And the CMOS have a relatively high output impedance per inverter so you don't have to give them output resistors and the pairs in a single chip are closely matched.

output impedance of 400-ish ohm per CMOS pair, so 4 in parallel can easily drive a 600 ohm headphone.

cheers

[anotherjim]

Just looking in my usual place for bits and was shocked to see the LM833 is cheaper than the NE5532. For that matter, the TL082 is also cheaper than TL072 which is now more expensive than TL074. I guess the increased cost of newly restocked semi's is starting to show in the shopping cart.

[PRR]

> LM833 is cheaper than the NE5532

'5332 never goes out of style.

'833 did.

[Mark Hammer]

> LM833 is cheaper than the NE5532

'5332 never goes out of style.

'833 did.

Why?

[Rob Strand]

> LM833 is cheaper than the NE5532

'5332 never goes out of style.

'833 did.

Why?

It's hard to know exactly why these things happen.    There's zillions of great modern chips around but they still don't carry the momentum of some of these older devices.  Partly because the audio cult has come and gone. 

IMHO, the NE5532 was one earliest audio orientated devices which raised the bar in terms of performance.   It certainly deterred people from making discrete opamps.   The LM833 came a little later and was to a large degree National Semiconductor's answer to the NE5532.   Perhaps is just came a little late to stick has hard as the NE5532.    The NE5534/NE5532 do offer the ability to drive heavier loads and it is often used to do that, but it is also used where that's doesn't come into play so IMHO not the deciding factor.

The input bias on the NE5532 is kind of hefty.  That does have it's issues and is one of the reasons why the NE5532 is confined to AC signal applications, like audio.  The input diodes are another quirk which prevent it being used in some applications. [FWIW and IIRC, the LM833 doesn't have input diodes but i have fried quite a few input stages.  They become very noisy.  I suspect the BE junction on the input stage reverse biases.]

[PRR]

....IMHO, the NE5532 was one earliest audio orientated devices   .....why the NE5532 is confined to AC signal applications, like audio.

FWIW, the '5534 is a re-number of an older 10?? part developed mainly for near-DC strain gauges.

The LM833 is tainted by such association as LM386 and LM1024(?) cheap-audio chips. And the National DNR chip which was a rip-off of Dolby when he was a market power (GM may have had a stick in that pie). It was distinctly me-too (in the old meaning) and never promoted effectively. National's marketing managers could be awful clueless. But that's not the whole tale. Note that the LM391X "VU meter" chip, which was well promoted, got about zero traction among OEMs and little love from little people. For DIY it did too much thus was too complicated. For $499 mixer OEMs it was single-source whereas LM339 was dirt-cheap and 2nd-sourced, while $99 tape decks had several competing Asian 5-LED chips which was enuff for that market.

[Rob Strand]

....IMHO, the NE5532 was one earliest audio orientated devices   .....why the NE5532 is confined to AC signal applications, like audio.

FWIW, the '5534 is a re-number of an older 10?? part developed mainly for near-DC strain gauges.

Seems a bit off the norm to me.   There are many strain gauge applications where humble LM324's are used.  The drift of an NE5534 could very well be in the same region as the LM324.  There are some strain-gauge applications which demand a little higher bandwidth and lower noise.  Perhaps it was one of those very specific cases.

[zbt]

Maybe this can help, Sir Mark.

For me at A > 200 they all drunk.

For JRC4558 like this post https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=89934.0
(cant believe the chip can make myth  )

May be it scream at 2Khz and 8Khz, which in guitar frequency range is H2 and H4, which is pleasing for some believe.
But other feel JRC4558 is too boomy.

I could be wrong, depend on circuit perhaps.

[pinkjimiphoton]

The 5532 can drive lowish impedance loads directly, like 600 ohms. That's why studio gear loves using the 5532.
The 833 is a better spec op amp but won't drive low impedance loads as well as a 5532.
You may have to parallel more of them to drive a low impedance load.
Why not use a LM386?

Fair question.  Two reasons:
1) I have a bunch of 386s but wanted to try something different; especially since I bought way too many of the 833s.
2) I have some little speakers I built, using loudspeakers excised from old Macintosh computers.  Nice little 2" full-range drivers with BIG magnets and a foam surround, but with a nominal 64ohm impedance.  I'd like to be able to throw a couple of watts at them.  Nothing THAT substantial, but enough for nice background music.

you should be ok i'd think, i mean, a lot of guitar toys can drive a set of headphones. i got faith in you, sir mark!