The NE5532 is a very convenient package of two 5534s in one 8-pin devices with internal unity-gain compensation, as there are no spare pins. The 5534/2 is a low-distortion, low-noise device, having also the ability to drive low-impedance loads to a full voltage swing while maintaining low distortion. Furthermore, it is fully output short-circuit proof. Therefore, this circuit was implemented with a single NE5532 chip forming a pair of stereo, inverting amplifiers, having an ac gain of about 3.5 and capable of delivering up to 3.6V peak-to-peak into a 32 Ohm load (corresponding to 50mW RMS) at less than 0.025% total harmonic distortion (1kHz & 10kHz).
I have Used it with Sennheiser 465s and achieved ear-splitting volume. The amplifier is ideal as a booster for power-conserving stereo sources Such as portable CD players and for interfacing with passive EQ networks Such as tone controls or a headphone acoustic simulator.
