"This always makes me laugh, because there is probably no music on the planet that has not passed through a hundred or more 5532s on its way to the consumer." - Douglas Self.
Thing is, the NE5532 is measurably worse than the best audio opamps you can get these days. Anyone still using it in high-end designs is either pinching pennies (seriously, even the "expensive" opamps are cheap) or just too self-righteous to admit otherwise. I just feel it's kinda embarrassing when you open up certain "high end" A/D or D/A converters and you see them using decade old parts that aren't even spec-ed for audio. The implementation is going to matter more than anything but you're not helping yourself out by sticking to what really is old IC tech.I'm sure the engineering departments at TI and AD are full of evil "subjectivist" tweekers who should have given up a long time ago. Now they're just bored so they're trying to pull one over on all of us
Let me highlight the inflammatory and judgmental aspects of this quote, then I will shut up about it:"With horrible inevitability, the very popularity and excellent technical performance of the 5532 has led to it being criticized by subjectivists who have contrived to convince themselves that they can tell op-amps apart by listening to music played through them. This always makes me laugh, because there is probably no music on the planet that has not passed through a hundred or more 5532s on its way to the consumer." For example, does the above do anything that this impartial rewrite does not--besides incite anger?Although the 5532 delivers excellent measured performance, and has been used widely in mastering consoles, some listeners believe that it is not a truly transparent device, and is bettered by other op-amps."
It can achieve very good measured performance (with a few caveats) when placed in a good implementation. No question there.
Benchmark used to say a lot of things and support much of the Self philosophy. Oddly enough they seem to be pushing newer updated models that supposedly already surpassed the capability of human ears. Hmmm.....
Quote from: OJneg on September 25, 2014, 02:59:08 AMIt can achieve very good measured performance (with a few caveats) when placed in a good implementation. No question there.LOL, Benchmark ended up replacing NE5532 with LM4562 in the USB and PRE versions.
