Solid State Amplifier Advancements In A Decade

"Progress.. I see what you mean, but most of the progress made today and through the last decades appears to be working around how to keep costs at bay through mass production, convenience (i.e.: size, consumption, etc.) et al. and hereby lessening the impact of such factors."

There's a difference between mass market products and high end audio components. What you are talking about here, applies mostly to lower end gear.

"If one were to read all hifi magazines through the last 30-40 years and follow the development of how the reviewers reflected progressively positive on the coming iterations of, say, Mark Levinson amps, the current versions should almost sound as good as to cure severe illnesses as a side effect. It's symptomatic to much of the hifi industry at large: reveling so locally, and navel-gazingly, as to miss the bigger picture."

Then how would you have them write the reviews? Its not like they can see the future and hold off on giving a component a rave review because future models will sound better.

11-06-15: Mapman
Capacitors and or other electronic parts alone make no sound and therefore have no inherent sound quality.

c'mon Mapman, I did not expect you to make such a ludicrous statement!!! You know that electronic parts have a sonic signature (look at the myriad of capacitors available) & check out this 56-page thread if you haven't already!
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1211428524&read&keyw&zzcapacitor

And, here's a resistor thread for your reading pleasure: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?eanlg&1223946120&read&keyw&zzresistors

Well they definitely do not make any sound alone but some parts definitely seem to get certain sonic attributes associated with them over time so there you go.

In a decade of reviewing I have seen implementation of some good ideas; banks of smaller capacitors massed vs. a few larger ones, Power Factor Correction, and bridged integrateds like the Musical Fidelity M6500i that I reviewed for Dagogo.com (Note, such a design outputs speaker voltage and current on ALL speaker posts, so it must be handled carefully with certain types of speakers. I have not done a retrospective on these technologies, so I don't know offhand whether they have been brought back from earlier designs or newly developed. Regardless, they seem to be in vogue now.

Despite these advancements I do not think the larger, heavier and much more costly class A and A/B amps will thrive long term.

There's a difference between mass market products and high end audio components. What you are talking about here, applies mostly to lower end gear.

Then, I'd say, you've only proven my point; progress is made mostly with mass (market) products in the context of their production methods and the demand for more size-convenient and power-efficient products. I'd go further though and incorporate the high-end market into the need for convenience and profit maximization which, I'd wager, "borrows" a lot from the cheaper section of audio components, one way or the other. This is less (if at all) about raising the sonic bar in absolute terms and more about working around constraints whose impact is, again, sought lessened.

Then how would you have them write the reviews? Its not like they can see the future and hold off on giving a component a rave review because future models will sound better.

Simply put, I don't need for them to have crystal balls but to put their sonic impressions into perspective. I've heard dealers say, quite often, how a new or more expensive product would "blow away" another (cheaper) ditto, only to feel myself they've exaggerated wildly. It's not only about exaggerating though, but perhaps mostly about feeling they're being mislead by factors that would influence what is sonically perceived. Essentially the same goes with many reviewers.