I've watched the videos and agree that the OPA2323 does appear to sound amazing by subjective comparison to the TL071.
However, it's not enough to say that it costs ~8.7x as much in local tokens because that doesn't reflect how much it costs as a percentage of the other components around it, many of which have a more profound impact on the outcome. This wouldn't stand as a good argument except that in many devices, you have a ceiling for how much your total BOM can cost before you've priced yourself out of competition.
In the end, a 8.7x cost bump is a lot to swallow for a feature that most consumers are physically incapable of distinguishing between. Every time I've raised the possibility of using the fancy new chips, vastly more experienced engineers than me have come out of the woodwork to tell me that in almost all scenarios, the tradeoff between price and quality isn't worth it.
Of course, if budget is not an issue, use the OPA2323. It really does sound great. Or more accurately, the degree to which it destroys good sound is as low as we can currently achieve.
(This comment originally stated a 12x factor, but I was terrible at math.)
Looking at Mouser Canada, it looks like the cheapest 071 is the TL071CDR, at $0.138/each (Canadian) in quantities of 5k. The OPA2323IDDFR is $0.49 in the same quantity.
> In the end, a 12x cost bump is a lot to swallow for a feature that most consumers are physically incapable of distinguishing between.
I think that the performance of an op-amp should very rarely have user-visible effects. The more interesting question is whether the more expensive chip can make for a simpler design elsewhere. For example, can a rail-to-rail amplifier save the extra cost of needing charge pumps and split-rail design elsewhere?
Also, not all domains should be cost-optimized. Hobbyist or prototyping work might best benefit from using a more expensive but more capable amplifier as a first choice, saving on the number of components that might need to be stocked in the home lab.
Yes, and if you are actually buying in that kind of quantity you should be able to do even better. TI’s budgetary pricing estimate is US$0.252 per 1K for the OPA2323IDDFR and US$0.067 per 1K for the TL071CDR.
In other words, the cheapest TL071 variant and the cheapest OPA2323 variant on Digikey Canada, in a quantity of 1 (ie wildly expensive). $0.31 vs $2.70 means that I shouldn't attempt math before coffee; 8.7x is still a big bump, although I acknowledge it's not the 12x I disinformationed earlier, with apologies to anyone reading.
If you are making a one-off $3 is laughable non issue, you will spend more for a lunch drink. If you are manufacturing something in the thousands the difference goes down to 0.252 vs 0.067 so merely $0.2 BOM bump. Also a no brainer if performance is on the line.
So the BOM cost may not be a significant consideration for hobbyists, especially when weighed against things like familiarity or being able to keep a stock of a smaller number of less specialized components, as Majromax points out.
I'm surprised to see you say that a US$1 opamp is as good as we can currently achieve. Presumably there are Analog Devices chips that are better than the OPA2323 even for audio? Even if you can't hear the difference, you ought to be able to measure it.
However, it's not enough to say that it costs ~8.7x as much in local tokens because that doesn't reflect how much it costs as a percentage of the other components around it, many of which have a more profound impact on the outcome. This wouldn't stand as a good argument except that in many devices, you have a ceiling for how much your total BOM can cost before you've priced yourself out of competition.
In the end, a 8.7x cost bump is a lot to swallow for a feature that most consumers are physically incapable of distinguishing between. Every time I've raised the possibility of using the fancy new chips, vastly more experienced engineers than me have come out of the woodwork to tell me that in almost all scenarios, the tradeoff between price and quality isn't worth it.
Of course, if budget is not an issue, use the OPA2323. It really does sound great. Or more accurately, the degree to which it destroys good sound is as low as we can currently achieve.
(This comment originally stated a 12x factor, but I was terrible at math.)