Digital Amps? Marketing Hype?

There is digital hype, and there is analog hype, and it seems to me that I hear a lot more of the latter. Each technology has a few real advantages, and thousands of myths.

My work involves servo-controlled gimbals of a missile guidance system, and let me tell you that the digital amplifiers in the latest system run circles around the old analog amplifiers. So far my audio amplifiers are analog. One of the advantages of digital technology is circuit simplicity and low cost, but, because it's new, manufacturers have not passed the low cost benefit on to the consumer. Not yet.

Crazy4blues...Carver already did that without the benefit of digital processing. He designed a solid state amp that was made to sound like a tube amp. He said he could tweek his amp up to match anything on the market. Reports that I read at the time said that he was quite successful.