What is wrong with negative feedback?

I have read Roger Modjeski address this issue, and his opinion seems to be that negative feedback got a bad name as a result of designers who had no formal training in electronics misusing and not being competent to properly implement negative feedback. In the right hands, it is a good thing. I think it would sort of be like a chisel in the hands of an artist versus a non-artist. The artist makes great things with the chisel, and the non-artist cuts his hands.

I listened in a group setting to a Berning amplifier with adjustable feedback: No feedback, low feedback, and high feedback. We all agreed that the low feedback setting was the best, followed closely by no feedback, and distantly by high feedback. The latter setting was the only setting I would consider unlistenable. The no feedback setting was a little too soft and mellow for my tastes, but I could see someone enjoying that type of sound, and I would not kick it out of bed. For me the low feedback setting provided the best of both worlds - detail, controlled bass, without being irritating.

There are good sounding components using feedback and no feedback, which is simply more proof you need to listen to the component, because the component really is an extension of the skills and philosophy of the designer, and there are good skilled designers employing both methods.

"Its been my contention that negative feedback is a major culprit, literally violating one of the most fundamental rules of human hearing: how we detect the volume of a sound."

Maybe. Maybe not. I've got a Music Reference RM-200II, and there are some compact discs (never records, it seems) in which I can only turn up so loud before my ears bleed, and others I can turn up without any irritation.

Then you factor in the speakers, and their ability to generate clean sound at the levels you are talking about.

Seems to me the only way to make that determination is to take two identical amps, one with negative feedback and one without, and play them with the same source through the same speakers. I've not heard of anyone who has done that exercise, much less anyone who has heard it.