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

Pretty sure the whole THD cat was out of the bag back in the late 70’s and early 80’s when relatively high THD tube amps crushed relatively low THD solid state amps in terms of sound quality. So, it’s not exactly news. The tube amps in question sported 0.05% THD vs solid state amps with "vanishingly low" THD around 0.001% or whatever. You know the amps I’m talikng about, the ones that’d rip your ears off. 

kosst_amojan

  " What if I could power my amp with fairy dust? Oh crap! This is reality and asking "what if..." doesn't make a thing possible. There isn't a 4th way to use them so now what? Just design irrational circuits that do nothing? You see these unlimited uses. Tell me what they are exactly.
And who are you exactly to left handedly insult people as to the quality of what they've heard? I can't stand the kind of pompous arrogance some folks like you wield around here, preaching down to the unwashed masses as if you've beheld divinity and know better than all "

With all due respect - I was not playing the "what if" game. When you say " There isn't a 4th way to use them so now what? " What you are saying is your not aware of a 4th way to use them.

kosst_amojan -
" And who are you exactly to left handedly insult people as to the quality of what they've heard?

When I told inna - "  You have formed an opinion about the current and past recordings based on what? An admittedly poor reproduction system? " I was stating 2 observations. The first sentence is accurate - he has formed an opinion as did most audiophiles. The second sentence was not to imply that he has an inferior playback system but that playback systems (in general) are not up to the task of exposing the degree of resolution that can be recovered from existing recordings. 

kosst_amojan  - 
" I can't stand the kind of pompous arrogance some folks like you wield around here, preaching down to the unwashed masses as if you've beheld divinity and know better than all "

On the contrary - I am humbled by the knowledge I have gained regarding methods of amplifying simply by being persistent and doing all the homework. If you look at the topic of this thread you will see why I decided to chime in with some good news. There are exciting advancements being made in the field of sound reproduction that audiophiles will benefit from.

If you read any of my posts anywhere you will see that I do not speak ill of any brand or designer. How can you have a civil dialog with the audiophile community when you get a post like yours that shows anger and frustration because you are certain that what I'm trying to share as legitimate progress is readily dismissed as nonsense?

Breakthroughs do happen if you stay positive and committed to a specific goal. My goal was to design an amplifier that does not distort. In order to do this I had to dig very deep into the route causes of distortion. I have had to approach this task by thinking outside the box.

When I said the other designers had "writers block" this was a compliment. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt. I could have said "they don't know how to do what I did." which is where we are at today.

You should not become angry at me for making progress that other designers have not been able to duplicate. Somebody has to move the ball forward. I remain humbled by the massive progress I have achieved.

I am using new methods of dealing with circuit weaknesses. I have made it a point to learn how active and passive devices "behave" when power and signals are applied. I have been at this for decades. I have gone through hundreds of circuit configurations to find one that works.

I have developed several new circuits that are able to produce gain from devices that are not meant to have gain. (The 4th way?).

I have found ways to cause a device to inherit a specific property from another device.(The 5th way?)

I have developed a detector circuit capable of extracting the velocity of a signal using current fragmentation. I can take a sample of pure current and cause a fragment (spin-off) to be used independently but with the same purity as the donor current. By converting the gauge of the current to a smaller size - it can be used to reveal far more detail buried in the music signal. (the 6th way?)

I can successfully monitor tiny changes along the time domain axis. This is where all forms of distortion are born. Remember that the significant data embedded in the recording that represents the sonic events is amplitude and time. This is the key to making distortion free amplifiers.
All you need to do is make the output of a circuit provide a larger version of the input with the SAME relationship between amplitude and time.

This gives you a way to recover magnitudes more information.

This is not wishful thinking. I have this technology up and running.

Roger

phd
geoffkait, that’s definately a different but interesting approach but how were you able to get rid of the house ac?

Batteries. No more ground issues. No more expensive power cords. No more bad power from the wall. No more big power supplies. No more teacher's dirty looks.

geoffkait
What are you using for a headphone amp?

I used to use a headphone amp, a Woo Audio pure tube Class A headphone amp with WWII era tubes. Today I use a Walkman CD player and Walkman cassette player. With Grado SR 60 headphones and Sony Ultralight headphones and Radio Shack Pro 35 titanium headphones. I heard a quarter million dollar system the other day. It was much better. 😀