Digital Amps? Marketing Hype?

Well, if you do a little research, you will find that most digital amps are, in fact, class D switching amps and they work fairly well for analog audio. In fact, I find the Bel Canto eVo amps quite excellent regardless of their technology. There are also exceptions, like the TacT and the Spectron, which will accept a digitial signal directly. So, it's not just marketing hype.

As for digital speakers, again, you have to define what you mean. At the moment, I know of NO digital speakers on the market. What I do see are two things which you might be thinking of. 1)Speakers that will accept a digital input like the Meridian DSP series have in-built digital eq/crossover and amps and they are quite good, in general. 2)The so-called 'digital ready' speakers which are marketing hype.

What stimulated your annoyance?

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.