The BA3306 is a dual preamplifier with ALC designed for use in stereo radio-cassette recorders and tape recorders. It comes in a compact 9-pin SIP package and has two record / playback preamplifiers, and an ALC circuit. The preamplifiers have high gain and low distortion, and can be directly coupled to the tape head without coupling capacitors. This prevents tape head magnetization and "pop" noise generation. The ALC circuit has good channel balance and large dynamic range and can be constructed with addition of just an external detector and time constant circuit. The IC also includes a power-on mute circuit that suppresses "pop" noise generation. FApplications