HiFi Articles #2

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Suppliers of Small Components by Dan Shanefield

While the Radio Shack bricks-and-mortar stores are still my first choice for quickly buying a few small components like resistors and capacitors, "The Shack" is not carrying as many of those things as they did in the past. Also, the little items are no longer as easy to find as the more popular large units such as cell phones, home theater systems, etc.

Recently, I've had to buy some components via the web, from some of the following sources, with good results:

www.allelectronics.com
www.alliedelec.com
www.audioelectronicsupply.com
www.cricklewoodelectronics.com
www.digikey.com
www.jaycarelectronics.com
www.halted.com
www.mcmelectronics.com
www.mcminone.com
www.mouser.com
www.oselectronics.com (Ocean State Co., for ferrite inductor cores, etc.)
www.smcelectronics.com
www.surplussales.com (who claims to have a million vacuum tubes in stock!)
www.partsconnexion.com
www.profusionplc.com
www.radioshack.com.
www.rocelec.com (claims "world's largest selection of discontinued semiconductors")

The following don't want to deal with anyone except professional EE employees in big companies, but they are sometimes willing to sell small orders to individual experimenters:

www.alliedelec.com
www.arrow.com
www.avnet.com (now separated from Allied)
www.globalspecialties.com (good for difficult-to-find parts)
www.newarkinone.com

Of course, there are still many suppliers of larger components such as loudspeaker drivers, vacuum tubes, etc., and they advertise in the backs of magazines such as The Audiophile Voice. For an amazing variety of hobby electronic kits, you might try: www.ramseykits.com. For some items that don't seem to be available at all from ordinary stores, I've had good luck locating and buying such things (like tunnel diodes, PNPN "Shockley" diodes, "back" diodes, etc.) through eBay.

BEST ONE:
www.kellysearch.com

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