All Amps Sound the Same....

For the overwhelming majority of music listeners the statements make very good sense. If you download your music from popular/non-audiophile sites, don't use acoustic room treatments, don't have a dedicated listen room, haven't meticulously positioned your loudspeakers and don't seat in a sweet spot, then why spend over $1k on an amplifier?

There's no need for snobbish bashing.

Measurements vs. senses is a false dichotomy. True audio reproduction art sensibly merges the two drawing upon the respective strengths of each area. Your physical senses cannot tell you that the earth is rotating on its axis and circling the sun at speed greater than 1,000 miles/hr. You have to trust measurements to understand those facts. At the same time all the math and measurements in the world won't help you consistently hit a curve ball. If you want to listen to music, your senses should dominate, but if you want to electronically reproduce music, then the measurements should be the dominate method of understanding.

Kijanki, a well crafted telling of the standard audiophile dogma with just a hint of hyperbole. But is it possible that it's not large amounts of negative feedback that's the problem, but instead the careless or sloppy use of NFB in circuits not optimized for large amounts of NFB? You should read up on the design criteria for Soulution amps/preamps. Their products feature massive use of negative feedback, outrageously good measurements and supposedly outstanding sound quality. I think you need to rethink your opinion about NFB.

Leaving the world of NFB behind, my earlier point was to point out that science (measurements) is best used in the design of electronic equipment intended to reproduce music and emotions are best employed when listening to music. I think the audiophile world is on the verge of what might be a significant advance in sound reproduction quality as engineers are becoming more knowledgeable about what to measure and how the interpret the data.

One last point, Rowland amps, even the ICE-based ones, measure quite well. Come on down from them hills!

Trelja, this may not be that coherent an explanation, but this is what I'm thinking...

A generation ago the engineers and tech involved in grand prix motorcycle racing basically had a stop watch, temp gauges and the comments of the rider to tell them about the race track performance of the motorcycles. With so little information the rider's comments about feel and responsiveness dominated the motorcycle's development. Today the situation is vastly different. With multiple computer setups data is streamed in real time or downloaded for analysis. The rider's comments are still important, but they are not necessarily the most important source of information about how to get the bike around the track faster. The better race teams have learned gather and make use of the data.

I think we're at a similar point in audiophile equipment design and manufacturing. We no longer have to just rely upon our ears and a seat of the pants explanation of what is going on inside the components when they are playing music. We're no longer stuck with static test signals and can now actually observe circuit behavior under dynamic conditions over time. At least that's what I am led to believe from reading manufacturers' papers. As an industry we're moving beyond frequency response, THD and S/N. I think that's a very good thing, but at the same time it doesn't guarantee better sounding components. I do think that over time the improved analytical capabilities available when used by skilled engineers/designer will eventually produce better components. We're always going to have to trust our ears, but we're also going to have to trust the measurements too.

Kijanki, from reading your posts I think you know way more about electronics than I ever will. I acknowledge that and I respect you for that. However, when you say that you should avoid products that measure well -- I just have say that don't make no sense.

As far as Soulution and NFB -- some of their product blurbs say they don't use it and at the same time there are printed comments from their designer saying he's taken heroic measures to implement high speed NFB circuits into the product.