Stupid SID Survey

[Jaicen]

Tonight, I finally got around to testing three different SID 6581's i'd acquired from a very generous friend, against the one that came inside my own C64.

Two of the SID's had really good aggressive filters that had a really nice range, and two had quite smooth dark filters. Strangely, two of the SID's that were the least similar were manufactured exactly the same time (week 22, 1984). However, the thing that I find most interesting is that the one I prefer that's the most aggressive and resonant is in the smaller package, manufactured in Taiwan. The other week 22 SID was manufactured in Korea. This lead me to wonder wether the place of manufacture had anything to do with the quality of the sound produced.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that Korean SID's don't sound good. I've got a second Korean SID which has a pretty nice filter, though less aggressive than the Taiwan. This is an 84, but week 36 so later manufacture.

All I was wondering really, was of all the 6581's this community uses, which ones do YOU prefer ie;

Week:22

Year: 1984

Manufacture: Taiwan

Package: Small Plastic

Interestingly, my third choice SID is a REV4, wk19 1984. Although the filter is smooth and has a decent range (more so than 2284 number 2, least favourite), it just lacks that bite and resonance of the other two. It does run much cooler than the Taiwan though, which is a concern for me.