Can they be good ?

[hebaton]

Hi all, I have one question.
I am interested in a guitar preamp/pedal. I reakky like everything it does but I am hesitant because it is built using suface mount components. I may be completeky wrong but I am under the impression those are usually of pooor quality. THe unit is built by a company that has a good reputation as far as I know ( tone King )
What is the general take here on surface mount components ?

Thank you !

[martin manning]

I wouldn't let the SMD components put you off. Reliability shouldn't be a problem. If you were thinking about modifying it that would be more difficult, but even that can be done.

[Stevem]

What I see at work with stomp boxes with surface mount parts is a higher failure rate that I believe is due to them being more susceptible to static discharge.

Dry weather and if you have on whool clothes or the boxes are on a carpet floor can be deadly to the box.

[nuke]

My other passion/hobby in life is aviation. I fly around with a glass cockpit in instrument flight conditions relying entirely on surface mount electronics.

On the high voltage question, I've worked in the EV industry, where the battery voltage is 900vdc and motors made over 1100hp, so lots of current and voltage. All of it running in SMD components. Very little through-hole components anywhere.

I wouldn't be put off anything well made of SMD. It is more difficult to modify SMD equipment, and you need the right tools to work on it. But, it is a very mature technology and the tools are generally available at even the hobbyist level today. I have a good stereo microscope at home, not the same as the Zeiss ones in the lab at work, but plenty good enough. Hot air soldering is not hard to do. Fun stuff like low-melt solder allows for easy removal of large IC's and is easy for the hobbyist or small shop to get.

[xtian]

What I see at work with stomp boxes with surface mount parts is a higher failure rate that I believe is due to them being more susceptible to static discharge.

Dry weather and if you have on whool clothes or the boxes are on a carpet floor can be deadly to the box.

IDK, man. A 1000V diode is still 1000V, whether it's thru-hole or SMD.

[R.G.]

It's fine. SMD parts were furiously criticized for a while because "that's not the old vintage stuff, so it must be cr@q." school. I suspect many techs hated SMD because their old soldering techniques were not up to dealing with tiny SMD parts. There is an almost exact parallel in the criticism of PCB based amps because the tone just can't be as good as point to point construction. That's mostly died away now, largely because there wasn't any real reason PCBs could not be good; only that the first PCB amps were stupi... err, naively laid out for the job.
Don't sweat it.

[LOUDthud]

One problem with SMD is that good AUDIO quality capacitors are large. The temptation to use low quality ceramic capacitors is very strong because of their small size, low cost and availability.

[martin manning]

SMD capacitors are typically MLCC type, which can be high-stability, low distortion C0G/NP0.

[nuke]

SMD capacitors are typically MLCC type, which can be high-stability, low distortion C0G/NP0.

yeah, you got to read the datasheet.

Besides, you can get very good electrolytic caps in SMD format. There are even film caps in SMD today. Nothing wrong with mixing a few hole-through components with SMD if one feels the need.