ABSTRACT
The 5532 is (as usual) in a class of its own. Both the Texas and Fairchild versions of the NE5532 have an Absolute Maximum power supply voltage rating of ±22 V (though Texas also gives a “recommended supply voltage” of ±15 V), but I have never met any attempt to make use of this capability. The 5532 runs pretty warm on ±17 V when it is simply quiescent, and my view is that running it at any higher voltage is pushing the envelope. Moving from ±17 V rails to ±18 V rails only gives 0.5 dB more headroom, while stretching things to ±20 V would give a further 1.4 dB. Running at the full ±22 V would yield a more significant 2.2 dB improvement over the ±17 V case, but that is just asking for trouble. Anything above ±17 V is also going to cause difficulties if you want to run opamps with maximum supply ratings of ±18 V on the same supply rails.
