That's a bit of a generalisation. Whether the NE5534 is too noisy or not, depends on the application. The microphone impedance, sensitivity and how loud the sound being recorded, will all be factors. If the microphone is used in a fairly loud situation, such to record singing or a pick-up on a musical instrument, I doubt it will be an issue, as the ambient sound will always be higher than the NE5534's noise floor. If it's being used to record quiet sounds, such as insects moving around, then it certainly won't be good enough.
I'm currently designing an intercom system, using the NE5534 as a dynamic microphone pre-amplifier, simply because there's no point in using anything better. It's not a balanced system: the headsets all have single core screened cable and tests have found that noise pick-up from the cable, exceeds that in the NE5534, even with a noise gain of 60dB (a two channel mixer with a gain of 50dB). I would love to use a balanced system or headsets with a built-in pre-amplifier, but it has to be compatible with an existing system, which is unbalanced, so is a no-goer.