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Why do audiophiles shun feedback in amplifiers?

I've owned several very highly regarded tube amps. Some of them allowed adjustment of the amount of negative feedback. I've always found some degree of feedback improved the sound...more realistic with tighter bass, dynamics, better defined imaging, etc. I have found amps with less or no feedback sound loose and diffuse with less dynamics... I know you should design am amp with excellent open loop gain before applying feedback. I can see the use of no negative feedback for low level amplification (eg, preamp and gain stage of CDP or DAC). So why this myth perpetuated by audiophiles and even many manufacturers?
dracule1

Showing 2 responses by frogman

frogman
7,357 posts
 
****But we audiophiles (and closet musician on the side such as myself)
have our own set of terminology that will befuddle most musicians. We use
many different terms to describe the similar, if not the same, thing (eg,
instrument tone, tonality, timbre, overtones, harmonics). ****- Dracule1

Yes, and that is a very real problem. It does befuddle that there should be
so little effort to understand and describe music in the same way (at least
as far as terminology, if not depth) that musicians do. At the end of the
day, this is one of the reasons that the sound of so many audio systems
bears little resemblance to the sound of live music.
frogman
7,357 posts
 
Not exactly; but more the latter than the former. In the broad sense, what I meant is that I believe that if audiophiles would take it upon themselves to learn more about music at a level of understanding approaching the level of understanding that many reserve for the technical aspects of the playback equipment, their scope would be broadened in a way that would allow them to assemble audio systems that more closely approach the sound of live music; not to mention, enjoy music even more. Unless we dismiss the importance of what we may each learn about equipment via reviews, discussion forums, etc., the importance of using terminology that is universally used is obvious. As far as the more specific sense goes, let's look at some terms that are used frequently used in audiophile descriptive language that are problematic. A couple that come immediately to mind:

"Dynamic"- Often used to mean the ability to play loudly. It has nothing to do with loudness, but rather the way that the sound gets from point A to point B on the volume scale. Is it done seamlessly?

"Accuracy"- It is bad enough that the importance of comparison to live is routinely dismissed. The term is often used as a description without comparison to anything else; simply to connote a quality that is considered to be lean, bright, or lacking warmth (even natural warmth); playback that is "accurate" is anything but.

"Brightness/harshness"- Often confused. Harshness does not have to be bright. It is very possible to have a harsh sound that is too dark; just as it possible to have a bright sound that is round and smooth. Tonality is often confused with texture.

Musical, warm...the list goes on

   
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