Anything as " fast" as SPECTRAL gear?

Thank you Al, but look who my tech is talking to. I need simple. All my amps are in that optimal range you suggest but I can attest to your suspicion that low noise floor plays a key role in realistic sound stage and what sets amps apart from one another with otherwise similar specs.

"I'm an EE with extensive analog and digital design experience (for defense electronics, not for audio)"

So this is why our military has all the good stuff they do. I always assumed NASA reversed engineered alien technology. I should have known better.

My understanding is that for the most part sonically, slew rate correlates to bass performance and rise time to treble. This is what I've been told by the tech who's worked on some of my amps.

Actually slew rate has almost nothing to do with bass, in case Al had not made that clear earlier.

Damping factor also has nothing to do with bandwidth, slew rate or risetime. However, A high risetime and slew rate can improve the effectiveness of the use of loop feedback, assuming the feedback parameters are properly worked out. So it may be that with higher risetime and slew rate, an amplifier with a greater damping factor can be built.

The thing is, no speaker needs more than about 20:1 for a damping factor- in fact if the speaker is over-damped, quite often a loss of bass impact is experienced (and is also measurable).

As Deep Thought was want to say: "Tricky."

Interesting.

It might be hard to quantify or even identify but it makes sense to me that higher performance in general enables design options that might not be viable otherwise. To what extent any of those are beneficial or not of course may still be up in the air, but it is always a good thing to have options in design, at least that has been my experience over the years in other areas of engineering.

Isn't that what "high end audio" is really about from a technical perspective? Doing things bigger, better faster....sometimes just because you can.

I think it would be useful to get a subjective description of just what the attributes of a 'fast' amp are sonically. What does speed sound like in an amp in comparison to mediocrity? Anyone?