Philbrick P65 opamp

[NOON]

I recently picked up a NOS Philbrick P65 opamp. From what I've read these were the first silicon opamps sold and were very well built. Nice when your components came with the pinout printed on the side.

The problem now is what to do with it. Do I :
- Donate it to a museum? (I don't think they're THAT rare)
- Frame it and stick it on the wall (seems a shame)
- Build some kind of circuit around it?
I'm leaning towards option 3. I realise that spec-wise a modern chip opamp or even newer DOAs will far surpass the performance but it's good enough to not really be a 'flavour' piece either. Still it would be nice to build a 'History Channel' just to be able to run some signal through it while pondering the history of audio electronics and analogue computing.

Any suggestions for a good circuit that would put this piece of history to good use and let it do what it does to the best of it's abilities? Stick a mic transformer in front and a driver opamp and transformer on the output and call it a mic pre? Do a classic opamp EQ circuit using inductors and caps?

 

[emrr]

Given that people ‘cork sniff’ every other op amp variety, it can certainly be considered a color piece.

 

[NOON]

I'm from the school of 'moving the mic by about 1/2mm will change the sound more than changing the opamp.' (as long as the opamp is appropriate for the position e.g. FET vs BJT etc)

 

[emrr]

Sure, me too, but all you need to do is look at the endless opinions about 2520 variants to get the picture.

I like the bit that no one could figure out how the Philbrick was stable, and it was capacitance between boards, or parts, or something.