Tayda 4558 vs others

[matmosphere]

I was wondering if anyone's has sat down and really compared tayda 4558's to ones from somewhere like smallbear. I know that some of tayda's ic are looked down on. I haven't used many but i have used their 4558s in a few builds.

Is it worth getting jrc4558 from somewhere like smallbear and replacing the Tayda ones?

[madbean]

I don't know about comparisons but my general advice is you get what you pay for with Tayda. I have seen numerous builds gone wrong that came down to bad Tayda components (although many of those were bad charge pumps). You'd probably have to get down and dirty with a scope or measure noise levels with a wave form feed to get a real accurate idea (and across multiple devices).

One suggestion I've heard is that Tayda sources some off-spec components which is why they are so cheap. Have no idea if it's true or not. But, I don't buy any active devices from them. Pots, sure. And tons of IC sockets and LEDs.

[BrianS]

This isn't with a 4558 but their TL072 just the other day.  I had finished Buggs Therimonic board and put some of their 72s in.  The pedal worked but it really sounded bad.  I'm thinking I did something wrong as usual and I decided to replace them with ones I got from Mouser or Arrow.  Huge difference.  I really couldn't believe how much better it sounded.  I probably have some of their 4558s in some of my old pedals that work ok.  But after getting ICs that didn't work very well I quit buying any of them.  I'm sure there are several others that have had better luck than me.

[matmosphere]

Thanks for the quick replies!!

I always see people talking about tayda selling "fake" ICs. Is there a way to identify if they are indeed fake?

I'm going to probably go ahead and order some from elsewhere anyway.

[reddesert]

I have built a few PCBs and a number of veros with Tayda components, including ICs. I haven't had any problems. The only issue I've seen is a 7660 charge pump that was listed correctly as non-S (non-boost, ie may whine at audio frequencies), but the chip itself is labeled with an S. That could trip someone up, and maybe they used to sell them as the S variant, but had to relist them without the S.

I have not had any problems with 4558's. That's an ancient design. It would almost be harder to make a fake 4558 than a real one. We could ask about whether the parts are in-spec, but the reality is that very few audio pedal applications get anywhere close to the limiting specs of an op-amp; they work at higher frequencies and linearities better than we need.

I would be more concerned about Tayda's mechanical parts, like jacks, than for electronic components.

This may be a bit elitist, but after reading a number of pedal fix and debug threads on diysb and elsewhere, I've noted that people often blame and replace components like ICs and electro caps, when the problem is most often an unsoldered or broken connection, or a solder bridge.  I did this myself with my first (Tayda) PT2399 build.  Having heard rumors about their chips, I swapped chips, etc etc ... It turned out I had missed soldering one pin of the socket. Oops.

[pickdropper]

I have built a few PCBs and a number of veros with Tayda components, including ICs. I haven't had any problems. The only issue I've seen is a 7660 charge pump that was listed correctly as non-S (non-boost, ie may whine at audio frequencies), but the chip itself is labeled with an S. That could trip someone up, and maybe they used to sell them as the S variant, but had to relist them without the S.

I have not had any problems with 4558's. That's an ancient design. It would almost be harder to make a fake 4558 than a real one. We could ask about whether the parts are in-spec, but the reality is that very few audio pedal applications get anywhere close to the limiting specs of an op-amp; they work at higher frequencies and linearities better than we need.

I would be more concerned about Tayda's mechanical parts, like jacks, than for electronic components.

This may be a bit elitist, but after reading a number of pedal fix and debug threads on diysb and elsewhere, I've noted that people often blame and replace components like ICs and electro caps, when the problem is most often an unsoldered or broken connection, or a solder bridge.  I did this myself with my first (Tayda) PT2399 build.  Having heard rumors about their chips, I swapped chips, etc etc ... It turned out I had missed soldering one pin of the socket. Oops.

Well, they definitely sell out of spec parts.  I've measured FETs and Diodes that were well outside of the specs on the datasheet.  Some of the FETs were so far out, I'm not even sure they were the right part.  I'm curious what the channel is for the parts they get; at their prices, it's probably outside of the standard distribution network for some of the components; that would certainly explain the variable quality.  I ran into a similar issue when I tried to source discontinued FETs directly from China (I had a consultant I deal with in China purchase them in person for me).

I agree about the mechanical parts; a lot of them are pretty rough.  OK for personal builds, but I wouldn't take them on the road. 

There are still a few things I get there on occasion that are good value (ie: 9mm pots).  I did have to stop using their LEDs because some of them have the leads too close to the edge of the plastic (or even exposed).  I've had Tayda LEDs fail in the field so I've stopped using them.  I haven't had that issue with LEDs from other vendors.  At this point, I try not to use their parts (with maybe the exception of pots) unless it's in a test build for me.

[reddesert]

Despite my generally positive feelings about Tayda components, I wouldn't buy anything exotic or out of production from them, or from any bargain seller. If a price on an out of production component is too good to be true, it probably is. I only have a couple years experience with Tayda and it doesn't look like they sell anything really exotic now - I got some 2N5458 JFETs that were within spec, but they don't have any of the more commonly used kinds of JFET, probably because those are all gone. I don't know if their germanium diodes are/were really Ge, but the Schottkys I used have the right voltage drop.

When I bought a pile of J201s, I got them from smallbear. If I needed scarce items such as CA3080, or MNxxxx, I'd also order from Steve. And if a bargain seller is advertising these, it would make me question everything they're selling.

I build as a hobby and tend to be gentle on equipment; if I were building more than a handful of pedals for others, I'd want to be more cautious about robustness of both components and construction. That said, in both my professional life and hobby-music, it seems like >95% of problems are down to bad cables or connectors.

[Betty Wont]

In the last two years using tayda as my primary supplier, (300-400 builds) i've never had a bad or out of spec component. I've only received small screws sometimes with enclosures, and had to replace them with full sized ones. All the failures i've encountered in that time were bad switches and jacks, that i bought from domestic suppliers like small bear and blms.

[stringsthings]

I've ordered tons of parts ( active and passive ) from Tayda, and I've never gotten a bad IC.

I do understand why some people don't care for Tayda parts, but for me, they've always been reliable.
The prices are so low, it's ridiculous.  Shipping cost is very reasonable, and shipping time for me has been
consistent.

The one Tayda part I don't care for is their 1/4" jacks.   

[chromesphere]

Tayda buy HUGE quantities to get big discounts from manufacturers, their main concern is unit cost. Have a look at the quantities for parts they have available, 10k, 100k available units etc. This is obviously a good thing, that's how they can supply these parts so cheaply. 

The problems I have seen come up because if they are to supply, say, a tc1044, they will find the cheapest tc1044 they can find.  Noise specifications, operating temperatures, tolerances or any other characteristic doesn't come into consideration.  Purely cost. 

Its a business operating strategy that can be applied to everything Tayda supply (just my opinion anyway)

[Boba7]

I've had issues with voltage regulators and charge pumps, and I've had some bad transistors (though a lot of good ones too!)
I've also had a few bad ICs, like OP275 (totally fake, sounded like crap, I compared it to a good OP275 from Musikding)

I quite like their 3pdt and their jacks, but I've had trouble with their DC jacks.

I like their multilayer ceramic and film caps.

[juansolo]

The single only thing we buy from Tayda now are Alpha pots... That's all you need to know really.

Well, they definitely sell out of spec parts.

Big time. We've had a load of bad parts from Tayda and the quality of them has noticeably dropped over the last few years to the point where we would now expect to get substandard and out of spec parts from them. *fingers crossed* the Alpha pots still seem ok, but once they go bad, we'll not use them any more.

[mrclean77]

a) I wouldn't get charge pumps or PT2399s/etc, from there - I don't think I've had bad builds w their 4558 or TL072's; I think their box caps/etc are fine; resistor leads are turrible; the only electrolytic cap I've had kasplode was a Chong from Tayda

I still have some stuff from there and also buy their Alpha pots, but:

b) If I were stocking up and had nothing in the bins, at this point I would probably be on the side with Mr. Bean and Jaun - only pots, LEDs, etc (I'm not gonna ditch all my current Tayda 4558's, but if I were starting fresh or ran out, I'd go w Mouser/etc --- the cost may add up, but it's very cheap insurance/a very cheap increase in price for easing my mind)

[Boba7]

oh yeah their PT2399 are terrible haha. And I never bought an electro from them.

[mremic01]

For both their 4558s and TL072s, I've gotten both legit looking ones and off-looking ones (maybe counterfeits). When I was placing orders regularly, I would sometimes throw in one or two of each  just to see what they were currently shipping and if what I got was good, and then I would immediately place another order for more to stock up. Seemed like I would usually then get a the good ones. They were cheap enough that doing it this way saved quite a bit of money over buying from Mouser, even if I wound up getting a few large orders of fake looking ICs.