Trevor Wilson wrote:

**Typical American attitude. If it's broken, chuck it
out,
regardless of the inherent quality of the device.

Misses the point that the inherent quality of the TDA1541
is
relatively poor by modern standards.

**Irrelevant. Your claim, here and elsewhere, is that the
TDA1541 is 'audibly perfect'. Therefore, given the
inherent quality of the device being repaired, it makes
perfect sense to spend a reasonable amount to service it.
The American attitude, as typified by your comments, is to
chuck it out, rather than service it. That, in part, is
what is wrong with our society today.

Not for much longer, you'll be happy to know. It's an
attitude arising from low relative prices for consumer
goods.

Soon, Americans won't be the only people to find themselves
darning their socks. God knows what'll happen when all these
mobile phones start breaking down and no-one can afford new
ones.

Anyway, on your substantial point, how old is the currently
prevalent view that CD audio is as close to perfect as makes
no difference? Seems to me "improved" chips continue to
appear periodically, and some of these improvements are
presumably related to accuracy. So at what point in this
history did these improvements become indiscernable?

AFAIK, infatuation with the TDA1541 is because it's used in
equipment that sounds particularly good in the opinion of
some people. Chunky chip, too, which is handy for DIYers. I
guess those people would be prepared to accept that they may
not measure too well, but they don't care.

I wonder if Arny was here, at the time, to tell everone that
it really didn't matter, because in XYB tests no-one could
tell the difference.

Ian