3 Comments

Regarding the TL084 (or TL072 which is more reliably quieter) these are at least 3x as noisy as the NE5532, which I have found to be much noticably quieter for audio applications. Also consider the OPA2134 as a superior lower noise op amp. When doing filtering you should use a high quality low noise op amp.

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Thank you, I appreciate the comment.

It's hard to find a good op amp in a DIP package these days, which is what I was hoping for. I may have to cave in and use a SMT part that has superior quality. I do love the NE5532 as a general purpose audio op amp. I might re-spin the PCB to take two dual op amp packages instead of one quad package. That would allow me to try the NE5532 or some other higher-quality parts.

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Out of curiosity I looked up the noise specs of the two op-amps in question.

At 1 kHz:

TL084: 37 nV/root Hz

NE5532: 5 nV/root Hz

Yeah, you are correct, it's a huge difference. Now I'm definitely leaning towards trying a new op amp. Still going to relocate the AF filter in the block diagram to right before the audio PA.

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