Quote:
I believe that you could successfully get a new chip onto that.


Yes, I think so. The nice thing with the cs4231a, is that many of the pins are "no contact" (unused). So the missing pads here don't matter much.

But the previous owner also thought that a new chip could be placed there, and the results were less than impressive. I could probably do a better job than that, and you (RobS) certainly could. But perhaps I'll just leave well enough alone, for now.

Cheers!