Are future improvements in Amp/PreAmps slowing to a crawl?

Our amps are really not spinoffs of anything. And they are tube. So I don't agree we're at the end of the line by any means...

But to make it more interesting, we've been working on a class D amp of our own for which we're also working on a patent. Not going to reveal too much, but we solved one of the major sources of distortion in class D amps. And we have proof of concept.

Now if we can do that on no budget and without any prior *recognized* expertise in the field of endeavor (people tend to think that just because we only do tubes that we can't know solid state as well, as if solid state is not taught at the University of Tubes or something...), what does that tell you? That perhaps there is still more to be done?

One area that is a problem for all amplifier designs is that most are designed to have specs that look good on paper and are not really designed to also sound good. Now this is a simple engineering problem (understanding the rules of human hearing and designing to those standards rather than the existing set of arbitrary rules); the bigger problem is tradition- the tradition of how we say what are good measurements and what are not is at the heart of the issue. How do you get the industry to move off of standards set in place 60 years ago??

Until we fix *that* problem, progress will only be had by the outliers who are willing to buck the tradition and pay the price. And they are out there.

Some years back I had some troubles when some people tried to steal my company. I remember getting a call from David Berning, who simply called to offer moral support; he told me (paraphrasing) that 'the industry needs people like you that bring diversity to the field'. I really appreciated hearing that from him and who better to say it as he is exactly one of those individuals: a brilliant designer and no-one makes amps like he does either!

There are brilliant designers in this field and there are those that recognize that if their amp is simply competent, someone will buy it even if it is a rehashed 1950s circuit. I don't see that progress has slowed down at all- if that is what Nelson (whom I see as one of the world's top designers) is saying then I disagree! I do think that we see a lot of derivative circuits but we're always going to see copycats.

Hey Ralph,

the liquid metal cable is all about re-writing the ground that electricity walks on. As fundamental a mental shift as can ever be. From the molecular and quantum levels, on up. Hardcore and real.

However, it’s a difficult thing for most people to understand has even taken place.

It’s a dancing bear that dances a lot like wire but is not even remotely the same. At all.

Can it do better than wire/solidus in it’s application in audio signals? Most definitely so. Can people relate to those changes and upturns in qualities they desire? (the human question is more complex than that, though)

Some do, some don’t. Top people in various fields ’get it’, immediately. Pundits on forums?... sometimes...not so much.

Hey, todd, thanks.  That's more or less what I'd assumed....I remember Audio Control or a company of a similar name had fielded a line of T amps; one could buy one standalone or a group of them that could be mounted into a common chassis (which was more or less a rack to encase them).  They came and went rather quickly...I guess they were either too far ahead of their time to be taken seriously or just got hammered by the pundits.  I was attracted by the concept, but wasn't in a situation to pull the trigger on them.

I may have been lucky or broke at the right time. *L*

But I hear and see the feathers being rustled by the factions already here....*wince*

C'mon, y'all.  Tubes and the 'typical solid state' are not going to vaporize any time soon.  The alphabet soup of amp types will be around for quite awhile, certainly long after the bulk of the readers here will have gone off to greener pastures...under grade level, but that's another issue for another sort of forum.  Any and all adherents will have their 'favs' tweaked to the nth degree.  D at some point will get superseded by E, F, and whatever quantum audio will look and sound like.

As was said by a wag sharper than I:

"The Future: Live it, or live with it."

It ain't going to go away, and it'll be here soon enough. ;)  Be patient, or ignore as best you can. *G*

'The end of science' bit in the title is mostly journalistic license in designing a hook for the article.

Nelson speaks on some of this via:

The other fundamental thing—number 2—is that I am centrally aware that all this is just entertainment, mine and yours. The objective needs of amplifier users are largely solved on a practical level, and as [Marshall] McLuhan perceptively noted, when that happens, we turn our technology into art. For me, the art lies in making simple, unusual amplifiers that sound great and measure fairly well. They aren't for everyone, but if they appeal to even a narrow segment of audiophiles, I'm perfectly happy. I'm equally happy if they are reliable.
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/nelson-pass-circuit-topology-and-end-science#T473FqLttf7wgh1I.99

Thus not quite the end of science but an established science can head into being used in or as - art as commentary.