searching better alternative for LM386

Yep. They tried to pretend it was something else - until the 1991 incident involving malfunction of a UAL Boeing 747 cargo door occurred at New York's JFK airport.

If that's what we fly in - how safe is a small gadget going to be?

What level is the output noise with a 10 ohm load ? Some figures would be helpful.

Have you got the correct snubber network on the output - 47 nF and 10 ohm in series to ground ? Also correct power supply bypass ? These things are critical to prevent the chip going into oscillation.

Have you also tried using the higher gain configuration - pins 1 and 8 open ?

Have you bypassed the unused input ?

Adrian,

I don't have the exact figures handy here (posting from home), but IIRC it's in the order of 5-10 mV peak-peak over the audio bandwidth at the output side.

Yes.

It looks like noise (random), not oscillation. There's no obvious ringing on step signals either, so it looks quite stable.

Yes, that's what I started with. I then reduced the gain from 20 to 9 to reduce the output noise accordingly.

Since the source impedance is less than 10 kOhm I have shorted the unused input to ground, per the datasheet's recommendation. Ground is a solid plane, by the way.

greetings, Tom

"Dangerous Tom"

Tom is totally clueless with analogue audio.

...... Phil

Mine happened right after a session on the artillery range. Usually the sound was weeeeeeoooou ... BOOM. One of them wasn't like that. The pitch didn't change on that one and an otherwise never cussing sergeant next to me screamed "Oh S..t!". Then we both hit the dirt.

My tinnitus sometimes stops for short periods of time... VERY startling when it's suddenly quiet ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Yep, same here. I think most of them do that.

Beware of the LT1010. It really hates to drive inductive loads. It seems to like capacitive loads OK. I would suggest the LT1206 as a better part.

What you really want is a pair of power-tech PT-9503.

But seriously, I just had a thought of a last ditch protection system. Make the DC supply the thing runs on unable to support the load for very long. This will limit the damage if all the other failsafes fail.

"Ken Smith"

....... Phil

Thats when you pick up the newspaper to see if you'r still alive.

Wimp! You want a pair of 4CX25000 tubes.

The same old, boring crap.

-- Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to prove it. Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell Central Florida

.........and bolt one to each ear.

Or the world's biggest electrostatic speakers! ;-)