Ordered it the way i order most of the exotic stuff, via friend in Japan. Akizuki in Tokyo. They sell them as soldered pins adapter or as a kit for customer to solder themselves. But chip as is, is soldered on pcb anyway since it's a tiny one. Muses03 was nice sounding, a bit thin, so never got...

Gotta say i love that smaller size of new burson lineup. Will have to give them a go soonish. Ordered muses05, so than will keep me busy a bit. As for the extenders. Now, i don't think it will degrade the sound much if all works fine, but the main reason i say that is, that it can oscillate...

Mill-max is the way. You can go for this one. https://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Mill-Max/110-13-308-41-001000?qs=WZeyYeqMOWeYjIS4tXLt7Q%3D%3D&countryCode=US&currencyCode=USD It will no doubt it will survive hundreds of opamp swaps :) Already tested.

Yes, go for established classics opa1612, opa1642. Discretes are a bit heavy priced, i would add burson v6 duals to the roster, but do try first these cheaper ones. See if you notice something, if you end up liking 1612, go for bjt discrete, if you like 1642 and opa1656 go for jfet (burson v6).

Simple answer is probably thats what they had on hand. Another answer could be that if it isn't a device you owned as 1st owner, someone could have swapped at some point. As above, i would try opa1656, it is slow enough you don't have to worry about how they've done decoupling on board. And it...

They have only one in small size, ss3602, and it ain't that good :) You are better off with muses02.

Dip8 is footprint of most trough hole opamps. Soic8 is the smd equivalent. Seeing pictures in reviews of your amp, it is dip8, and they supply 5532 opamp in dip8. If you can open it and send picture directly here, i can tell for certain.

You can't compare cmos opa back in the day and now. Burson v6 is probably the best opamp on the market for dip8 atm, i agree. But 1656 comes damn close to it as ic opamps go. Now there are specific cases where you want specific opamps, and as i said i can't see schematic of the device in...

It should but it is quite bad (i tried it in many devices, never sounded well anywhere). Opa1656 tops it easy. What they did for that v5i is basically slapped an unknown ic chip and biased it to class A with a resistor (which is the worst possible way to bias it to class A, transistors is much...

I don't see a schematic for it, but i would definitelly go with opa1656 for starters (requires adapter for dip8). Cheap, and quite possibly best Ic opamp for music on the market atm. You do have to take note of the size of that device, it is quite slim, so bursons are out of the question if you...

Because under the hood, it is unknown ic opamp biased with a resistor (worse way) into class A. Sounds bad, opa1655/opa1656 is MILES better. And much cheaper. V6s are solid though :) Maybe best on market for dip8.

V5i should never be an option :)

Use 0.1uf c0g smd capacitor. If you have a ground closeby, it's always better to decouple it that way (V+ - 0.1uf c0g - gnd, and, V- - 0.1uf c0g - gnd), if not you can use it between supply pins (V+ - 0.1uf c0g - V-). C0G at that value is usually 1206 footprint so it can fit below easy. There...

"Powdery" legs is ok. Looks legit from the pictures. Now, you can use acetone and try to wipe off the inscription. I don't have one on me rn, but usually inscriptions wont come off if original.

Oracle was bad, one discrete was bad (for the life of me i forgot the name). Seems like bad copies of available schematics/ic opa. There is also that one which is a copy of sparkos, but it costs about the same so no use wasting money there.