Upgrade for Burr Brown INA 217?

  • Thread starter Thread starter dickiefunk
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dickiefunk

dickiefunk

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What are decent opamp upgrades for the Burr Brown INA217 chips?

I've read that the THAT 1510 / 1512 is a possibility.

Are there any better alternatives?
 
INA217 is TI's top range instrumentation amp for audio. THAT feels they have a better product, there is also AD in that game. It's a bit of a Ford vs. Chevy argument. THAT does have better efficiency which is always a plus in my book.
 
I have none. Really I am mainly interested in low-current devices; I'm trying out AD620, INA111 right now.
 
The INA217 is a great Instrumentation opamp , the THAT 1512 devices do have slightly better specs but there is really no way you you would be able to tell the differance in sound quality with your ears, even with the right test equipment the differance would be close to nill ....

You would get a better sound quality improvement from upgradeing the Phantom DC Blocking Caps(or input transformer if it uses one) or the Line driver IC or the DC Ofset IC (If used) ....

The INA217 is most definately not the weakest component in the curcuit ....

Cheers


PS: in most respects the INA217 is a better IC on paper as per the datasheets than the SSM2019...
 
I have to agree. I been working (slowly) on some upgrades to the DMP3 which uses the INA163 and pretty much think that the only addition to the instrumentation amp would be to add a servo. And that is only to remove the DC offset and allow the removal of a coupling cap.

The front end work it top on the list. High quality input DC blocking caps bypassed with some small value film caps, matching the phantom resistors.

The next area is to work over the back end. (assuming that you have actives after the instrument amp). Some "better" opamps there and in the case of the DMP3 get rid of the 75 Hz filter as that it introduces a design compromise.

Regards, Ethan
 
Someone finally re-posted a link to the exhaustive capacitor test I had seen and lost:

http://uk.geocities.com/cyrilb2@btinternet.com/downloads_4.html

P. 13 of this document tests in the reduction in distortion with large film bypass caps--1uF and 10uF on a 100uF electro:

http://uk.geocities.com/cyrilb2@btinternet.com/download/capsound6.pdf

The measured reduction in distortion was only 1 and 2dB. It may be worth testing your selected film and electro caps for distortion before committing space for the bypass. Note that document #5 shows that bipolar electros exhibit lower distortion than either bypassed or unbypassed polar electros.

In spite of that, I haven't moved to nonpolars even though it would make my design life easier. Some comments out there about the reverse polarity only intended to be transient rather than constant, and the resulting effect on capacitor life . . . never seen it quantified, but that combined with the difficulty in sourcing them keeps me stuck with high-quality polars and hoping for the best :confused:
 
mshilarious said:
Someone finally re-posted a link to the exhaustive capacitor test I had seen and lost:

http://uk.geocities.com/cyrilb2@btinternet.com/downloads_4.html

P. 13 of this document tests in the reduction in distortion with large film bypass caps--1uF and 10uF on a 100uF electro:

http://uk.geocities.com/cyrilb2@btinternet.com/download/capsound6.pdf

The measured reduction in distortion was only 1 and 2dB. It may be worth testing your selected film and electro caps for distortion before committing space for the bypass. Note that document #5 shows that bipolar electros exhibit lower distortion than either bypassed or unbypassed polar electros.

In spite of that, I haven't moved to nonpolars even though it would make my design life easier. Some comments out there about the reverse polarity only intended to be transient rather than constant, and the resulting effect on capacitor life . . . never seen it quantified, but that combined with the difficulty in sourcing them keeps me stuck with high-quality polars and hoping for the best :confused:
Click to expand...


Those links are dead again...
 
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