Steakster: The Lightstar Reference is supposed to be slightly more neutral sounding than the Sunfire amps. Bob purposely built a slight dip into the upper midrange / lower treble of the Sunfire amps as he finds a small amount of euphonic colouration to sound better with most digital recordings. Having said that, this also works pretty well for most HT systems too, as it helps reduce the "shouty" characteristics found in most Hollywood productions.
As far as understanding what that article said, here's a brief run-down. Keeping the output voltage of the amplifier just above what it really needs allows the amp to deliver more current at any given time. This equates to increased dynamic potential and more driver control. Another benefit of this is that there isn't a lot of power wasted, so heat is drastically reduced. Efficiency is raised, so one can run a smaller power supply ( without penalty ) and with reduced heat-sink. This makes the amp less expensive to produce, easier to package and less expensive to transport. In effect, this type of design is a manufacturers dream and can be quite good sonically if properly implimented.
Jayc: Bob Carver is a genius, at least when it comes to manipulating electrical signals. Many audio "purists" discount his contributions to the world of audio as many of his circuit innovations are purposely designed to manipulate the signal i.e. "bells & whistles". This is done to achieve specific sonic goals that Bob finds worthwhile. Having said that, he's typically included the option of turning many of these "unnecessary devices" off or on as needed.
As a side note, many of these circuits / inventions came about as a way to address specific problems i.e. Bob was looking for a way to deal with specific situations in the average system operating under real world conditions. The Peak Unlimiter was a dynamic expansion circuit designed to deal with the limited dynamic range of highly compressed recordings. The Auto-Correlation circuit was designed to deal with surface noise as found on worn vinyl. Sonic Holography was designed to introduce a sense of spaciousness with more vivid imagery to compensate for poor recording techniques, etc... I think that you get the idea.
Marakanetz: Simpler circuits are cheap and easy to build, but hard to keep stable. Trying to resolve the stability issues may have one spending more time with a simpler design than just using more parts and making it a bit more complex. Then again, you already know this : )
Dave: I wish i was half as smart and a quarter as motivated as Mr Carver. Like him or not, he's responsible for quite a bit of the affordable technology & products that we have today. Sean
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