TDA2050 real vs. fake amplifier chip on the analyzer

[@JohnAudioTech]

Happy Holidays everyone!

[@VIPINSAINI_20]

Happy Holidays To you Too Sir John,

[@Conservator.]

Thanks John, Happy holidays to you too!

[@bobisyouruncle1]

Happy holidays my friend.

[@hobbyrob313]

for you too John, (of course everyone!) happy days for you and your family! RadioRob - Rob

[@desperateloner8555]

Theres a lot of old obsolete chips that are being re-produced by chinese companies and they're re-producing a lot of other kind of chips not only amps. UTC is one of these companies. I dont know how they did it but I guess they bought the design from the original manufacturer (idk)? Since they also got the datasheets. This probably the only thing that I love about china, they're good at keeping legacy and such a heaven for a lots of repair technicians

[@peterlarkin762]

I repair hifi, and have restored a lot vintage record player cabinets. If I can't find a NOS replacement stylus or cartridge, or their is a tight budget, I dip into a box of $5 ceramic cartridges from china. They actually sound good too! And recently needed a 50's philips cartridge that was part of the tonearm head. No problem, brand new reproductions in China for $35. If China didn't make so much rubbish we wouldn't have these gems to help keep old hifi alive!

[@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse]

Alpha&Omega is another one of those revival companies. They make some very very old components in a large quantity because they're still ubiquitous. Think of surface mount version of the 2n7000!

[@ivanlukic2360]

Greetings from Serbia. UTC is company from Taiwan. All their stuff is of excellent quality, ICs and transistors. This is 100% legitimate company and all their replacements for discontinued products are 100% identical as original products.

[@ahmedalshalchi]

Authentic components made by UTC of Taiwan are good made and price nice , since I used from 90's , why do you hate or surprised ???.... KEC of Korea are also good products if you may don't know !...

[@P_P826]

In Europe you can get authentic UTC chips for very cheap.

[@terencekaye9948]

From which company ?utc 2050l's any chance?

[@tvelektron]

@@terencekaye9948 "reichelt" stocks some of the UTC chips. Just got some UTC TDA2003 - and they are good. Of course the 2003 is not used for HiFi but it is nice for 12V single supply designs like my DIY internet radio

[@danieldrz251]

I assembled two of these about three years ago for 3-way bookshelf speakers on my PC desk. I assembled them with 23x gain, 18v symmetric supply, 10uf feedback capacitor and 470nf coupling capacitor. And its sound source is an Asus Xonar SE card. I did it this way with less bass and less gain, because my speakers play at low volume and only have 4 inch woofers and in any case, they don't reproduce very low frequencies. This would only strain the amplifier. The result, especially for the female voice, is excellent. The midrange is clear and smooth, the treble is crystal clear without sibilance and is not tiring.

[@krowwithakay]

Most requested video! thanks John!

[@apang9999]

I'm your loyal fan. Yeah, I have bought some other chips from UTC such as LM386 and tested complied to the specs as well. These are genuine chips but under different brand, which are different from fake chips with ST ot TI logo. However, one much source them from proper channels and so far I have tested many of the super expensive transistors and they worked well.

[@o_-_o]

Honest, good faith review. Thank you. Happy Holidays!

[@djtransnazgrz]

Took a look on LCSC, there are actually more TDA2050 analogs, like the XBLW TDA2050 in a TO-263 SMD package. HGSEMI and JSMSEMI also seem to make thier own version. I wonder if thier performace is also this good.

[@VIPINSAINI_20]

Sir John , UTC also make the LM1875T and they have used Same original silicon die[Same Die Area and geometry and same dimensions ] from National Semiconductor now TI, but these UTC made LM1875T are marked as LM1875L and they are kinda hard to get hand on, atleast in My City , please take look at them too, also please look at your Inbox i have send you JAT801 PCB Design which I have layout as per your recommendation, where you said the where and how to mount the transistor underneath the PCB itself,

[@AniketBasak]

Thank you for this! Been waiting quite a while for this one.

[@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse]

I have some UTC2050 units that were salvaged from equipment sold some decade and a half ago. Willing to send you one or two if that's desirable and I can find em!

[@willyrivero470]

I totally agree with you John, the TDA 2050 and 2030 are a gem to me. They are also my favorite.

[@poptartmcjelly7054]

There is a soviet audio chip that, if i remember right, is pin compatible with the TDA2050 so it would be interesting to see you test that one one day maybe.

[@colombowala]

Aliexpress eBay semiconductor stuff usually comes in a clear plastic bag, does it cause any static damages?

[@krowwithakay]

Long time viewer, and you read my mind with this one, J A T!!!:)

[@HimanshuSharma-dm8ol]

Merry christmas 🎉

[@ronniepirtlejr2606]

Reindeer crunch sounds good. I'm eating some Harry and David Moose Munch premium popcorn. Mine has green Packaging like yours.

[@aheadtothepast]

Hi John, Happy Holidays, and thanks for all the work you put into these videos!! One test I'm curious about is the short circuit survival of the UTC's.

[@JohnAudioTech]

When testing with square waves at full output, I did see current limit activate and reduce the signal. So it is present on the UTC chip.

[@VIPINSAINI_20]

I have around 150Pcs of UTC TDA2050L and they cost in ranges of 0.5$USD in retail here in India , I have made a design for TDA2050/LM1875 Parallel Amlifier using these ICs they do work wonderfully, I also tested another brand which is Chinese made with 🔺logo they do work fine too like UTC TDA2050L, UTC is from Taiwan , they are better little bit than other onces

[@paradiselost9946]

lol, listening to this on my lil TDA2040 based stereo. built on a bit of perfboard thats still smaller than the PCB youre holding...

[@krowwithakay]

Hey John, could you please consider doing a video on decent mosfets that can be purchased fairly reliably. I remember a video you did a few years back for BJT'S and TIP's but an updated video on this in general is very very much appreciated!!! It’s a shame what counterfeiters have done to the semiconductor markets!

[@JohnAudioTech]

I'll have to do this sometime.

[@AnnaVannieuwenhuyse]

@@JohnAudioTech MOSFETs are really in our future, even if I love my bipolar transistors!

[@joinedupjon]

As everyone knows there's guys on YT who decap some digital chips and have a look at the silicon under a microscope... Occurs to me it'd be interesting to look at the dies on these to see what if anything is different between the 'originals' and the UTC ones. Merry Christmas everybody.

[@ergindemir7366]

Since you use giant power caps and your results are much better than the datasheet, i guess most of the distortion is noise not harmonics.

[@JohnAudioTech]

Harmonics do show above the noise floor in the test but they are quite low.

[@DuroLabs85]

Here in India I get them for just 40 INR (0.45$) each and they are genuine ST, the knock off ones are cheaper usually around 20-25 INR (0.25$). I had a power Amp made out of those cheap UTC2050L after a year one of the IC failed wasn't providing audio and was very distorted at low signals as it heated up the distortion got even greater. Also it locked up sometimes creating a short between any one of the supply inputs and ground after sometime it use to work normally. Only that one was faulty I also have 2030 but none of them have failed.

[@hobbyrob313]

Hello John, I always enjoy watching your videos, thank you for the effort you put into it! I use this IC as a modulator for AM pirate transmitters (if you want to listen: SDR Twente - Google ) around 6300KHz. I also use those LM386 SMD modules for all kinds of things. How do you set up the SDR Twente properly? Then read this piece carefully ? ( set SDR Twente: 1 allow audio, 2 click on the * MAX IN * button, 3 click in the NIOCE REDUCTION box(checkmark), 4 write the frequency in the box where KHz is behind.) I think you might like it because there is plenty to hear with us there! in the weekend mainly around noon and evening around 6300KHz- AM in the mornings around 1630KHz also AM If you like it I can tell you more! but for now I think this is fun! I say: Happy, Healthy, Days from the Netherlands/Rotterdam - RadioRob/Rob

[@terencekaye9948]

Merry Christmas John, as we say up here in the Great white north Eh! 😊

[@stojanbn]

Hello. What are the values of the coil and resistor in LR filter that You used? Thank you and merry Christmas!

[@hugueslecorre4893]

Test also the Chinese TDA2050-LM1875 chips. They are not counterfeit or copies, they are new designs only labeled so instead of a new reference. They are unity gain stable but very low slew rate of 2.5v/us, I tried with saturated output on 8 ohms with +/-27v successfully. As they are unity gain stable, they can be paralleled and bridged to output 200W on 4 ohms with 10 units for less than $2.

[@GeoBass-89]

i build an stereo amplifier with UTC7265L recently and i use +/-21vdc and 4 ohm load. at high volume cut sound. i think is authentic and have overload protection or so, but sound better than tda2050 fake IC

[@GabrielFabia-t4t]

Thank you so much for this amazing video! Just a quick off-topic question: My OKX wallet holds some USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). What's the best way to send them to Binance?

[@keijojaanimets4460]

Signal decoupling caps make them sound different! (behave?)

[@eliasroque2397]

I have an amplifier that is over 30 years old and I recently had to replace the NR5532 opamp and I took the opportunity to replace all the electrolytic capacitors and I noticed that it has two MosFET 2SK1048 and 2SJ161, I have several amplifiers, NAD, Grundig, Sansui, Pioneer, Philips etc and also a modern SMSL that is not bad at all but the sound quality of this Aura VA100 evolution is absolutely incredible and manages to have much better quality than a modern SMSL, until today I have not passed through my hands any amplifier that sounded so good, I am not an expert in electronics but I would like you to tell me why this amplifier is so completely different from everything I have heard until today, greetings from Castelo Branco, Portugal. And merry Christmas.

[@1pcfred]

This was something I was interested in seeing so thanks for it. Merry Christmas John. The ST package is still better looking though. The UTC may hit the numbers but it's not doing it stylishly.

[@mafhper]

😮I only have 3 more of these

[@billspencer8540]

The leads on the fale chip are noticeably skinny compared to the real chip.

[@rajivcybercafe9234]

Verry nice loving videos

[@ZegaracRobert]

THD Inflection point kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2fFhGONirShapI is at 20W sharp (8ohm) and original has 8ohm inflection point at 16-17W kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2fFhGONirShapI?t=563 did you use same exact voltage for these measurements?

[@JohnAudioTech]

Same +/- 20 volt supply. I did use finer stepping in this latest test which might have shifted the point a bit.

[@ZegaracRobert]

@@JohnAudioTech Ah i see, i did notice THD curve looks bit "rough" since they all shoot up at that point you might refine stepping close to clipping point (in general)...

[@new-kids-on-the-block]

🤣🤣🤣🤣 i kno the feeling 🙄🤣🤣🤣

[@antoniojoseandreomartinez9710]

👍❤️🫂

[@ZegaracRobert]

Haha fake is better, high power THD increase lags compare to original! it gives more clean power!

[@mrb.5610]

Excellent - thanks John ! It was me who suggested it !! Going to watch this at least twice !!! Edit - I wonder how much individual ic manufacturing tolerances come into it ? Somewhere I have an old HiFi mag article where the author modelled a generic amplifier response with a spread of component tolerances - and his take away was that if you auditioned any hifi component in a shop and had a definite liking for one over another, that 's the one you should take home - not the same model boxed up and new but the *actual* one you listened to !

[@JohnAudioTech]

There are tolerances as shown on many datasheets but I haven't seen actual ICs vary much. Circuits controlled by feedback won't show much variation.

[@HimanshuSharma-dm8ol]

First viewer❤

[@krowwithakay]

Hey John, could you please consider doing a video on decent mosfets that can be purchased fairly reliably. I remember a video you did a few years back for BJT'S and TIP's but an updated video on this in general is very very much appreciated!!! It’s a shame what counterfeiters have done to the semiconductor markets!