[sdiy] Source for 3080's

[Steve Lenham]

>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Bruce" <bruce at psalm995.org>
>> I've purchased a couple of times from HK Superseller via e-bay.  It went
> well - good product (IC's and Switches) and fairly fast shipping...
>
>> > > Sam Ecoff wrote:
> and I seem plenty of them on evilbay from HK superseller (about whom I've
> heard some troubling things)

In my recent experience you are not 100% safe anywhere other than the "big 
boy" distributors; fakery is not uncommon (esp. among vintage parts) and the 
prevailing online wisdom regarding particular sources does not necessarily 
predict what you will get.

HKSS has got a persistent bad reputation, but numerous people have got good 
parts from them too. I had some perfectly good 4558 opamps (though I am yet 
to try the BA6110s...).

On the other hand, Futurlec seems to be fairly well thought of, but I just 
had a batch of non-working, clearly fake 2114 SRAMs from them. I'm happy to 
give a supplier the benefit of the doubt if it is clearly a one-off, and 
they have offered me a refund, but I'm not sure how I feel about ordering 
from them again. I invited them to reassure me on that point but they didn't 
have anything to say. Are their 3080s and 3280s definitely good? I bought 
some a while back but have not used any yet.

I also had a tube of fake AM6012 DACs from another small online supplier 
which caused havoc in a Prophet 2000 and may have been responsible for the 
death of a CEM3379 :-(

Hey ho - all part of the fun I suppose!

Cheers,

Steve L.