@ invalid,
I offer you should rethink your chip vs discrete preamp blanket bias. It was very true back in the days of TLO72's. By the time of the NE5558 ( POOGE, biased into class A) it got a lot fuzzier. With modern OPA series chips, it comes down to execution. Just picking OP-Amp vs. discrete is no guarantee the discrete was well executed either. Some can be of course. So "it depends". An inherent advantage of discrete is higher current so the possibility of cable impedance matching at the load end may have some possibilities. Paralleling op-amps can do the same thing.