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Vintage Synth Repair

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Re: Prophet-5/10/T8 DAC Chips Available

2009-10-13 by Mike de Vries

Aaaawwww common man... don't knock a man's business to satisfy your own personal crusade.
He's selling a couple of DACS.. and for someone out there who has a P5 with a busted DAC, that would be great news.
We don't all have the time / knowledge to be able to retrofit a newer DAC into the P5..
And even if we did, would the time spent justify the $60 saved? Probably not.
Regards
Mike

--- On Tue, 13/10/09, Alan Probandt wrote:



With all respect to the people who are tracking down rare new-old-stock ICs for exact replacements, I suggest that a newer compatable IC be substituted for an $80 IC.
Texas Instruments took over Burr-Brown and continues to make 16-bit parallel interface Digital-to-Analog convertor ICs that sell in the $15 to $25 range. To use a substitute like this, it would be necessary to make a small 'daughter-board' that would bridge the pinout between the original IC and the modern replacement. Also the modern IC would use a different voltage.
But I don't imagine that it would sound differently. A 16-bit DAC is a 16-bit DAC. Here's where I sit back and await the onslaught from the vintage synth true-believers. But if you're old enough to remember buying a Prophet 5 back in the early 1980s, then your ears probably can't tell the difference between a $25 16-bit DAC and an $80 vintage one. Because, if it is a good DAC, then a DAC is a DAC, especially a high-end one that has 16-bits or more.

I had a discussion on the web like this several years ago over guitar flanger stompboxes. Several responders said that they could definitely hear the difference between a $1000 flanger and a $100 one. I looked at the schematics for both and said that it would be unlikely that there could be 10 times the difference between the sounds.

Well I was treated to a discussion about the audio difference between 'brown' resistors made in the late 1960s and those resistors made today. Along with being the type of person who would choose a photograph of the Mono Lisa vs. the actual painting. I've never had a $1000 flanger, a Love Tone perhaps, but I can't believe that similar circuits made from similar parts using similar schematics are going to sound very different.

I await your comments on my barbaric nun-kulturni existence.

--- On Mon, 10/12/09, synthparts <synthparts@yahoo. com>; wrote:

> From: synthparts <synthparts@yahoo. com>;
> Subject: [vintagesynthrepair ] Prophet-5/10/ T8 DAC Chips Available
> To: vintagesynthrepair@ yahoogroups. com
> Date: Monday, October 12, 2009, 2:44 PM
> Hi, I have a couple DAC71-CSB-I
> Prophet-5rev3/ 10/T8 DAC chips. I rarely ever have these in
> stock and are near impossible to find. They are $80.
>
> Thanks
> Doug
> synthparts.com
>
>
>
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