So after a teardown Doug decided that this is not a candidate for modding.
From what i understand (and I asked for clarification, will update this im wrong)
the design utilizes the preamp that is internal to the A/D chips (it has two in parallel for better S/N), and there is currently no pin-compatible A/D upgrade so its dead in the water. overall its HQ though.
to quote (he talks about the d:vice as well which weve discussed a bit) :
I'm able to say it's fatally flawed in terms an upgrade because they use the internal to the A/D mic preamp. There is no pin compatible replacement for that ADC that offers better performance that I could locate. On the plus side they use high grade caps in the signal path and with high output mics, will do a good job. Using dual converters makes it even better. Given it's low cost and small size it's a good recorder for stealth tapers. I feel the DPA box is your best bet due to the quality of the components (he is talking about the MMA-A d:vice unit). It (the d:vice) could be improved only slightly by using a new op amp for the preamp. I know that chip well, it sounds damn good, I used it up until the end of last year.
his initial impression on the A10 (about a week earlier when he was just getting into it)...
I worked a little late last night and think that the A10 is impressive. It SEEMS to be using 2 AK4964 A/D chips, one for each channel. It also uses the same film caps I use in my best upgrades to decouple the mic power from the inputs. I've scanned the tech data for those chips and the mic preamp is surprisingly quiet with a DR of 100dB !