An amp with zero loop feedback must be extraordinarily well designed to work for music. Feedback disturbs phase response. Ayre is addressing design from first principles and I would expect all their products to be very clean, especially in the transient-temporal domain. If it sounds clean it is clean. But, the joys of power should not be underestimated.
I hot-rodded my 1990 Classé DR-9, considered a high voltage / high current amp. In stereo it produces100 wpc > 8 ohms, 200 > 4 and 400 > 2 ohms. Nice muscle and finesse. Strapped to mono it gives 400 wpc > 8 ohms, 800 > 4 and 1100 > 2, which means the power supply runs out of current before voltage. I use them in my studio where they are surprisingly cleaner strapped than in stereo at moderate levels into a moderate sized hard-to-measure space described earlier. Anyhow, I would have thought that the 400 > 2 ohms in stereo would have been plenty, freeing the other amp for other duties. But the improvement was dramatic enough to assign both amps to mono duties.
The current behavior of your Ayre is of interest. But, more power produces an effortless transient attack that really makes music work emotionally.
I hot-rodded my 1990 Classé DR-9, considered a high voltage / high current amp. In stereo it produces100 wpc > 8 ohms, 200 > 4 and 400 > 2 ohms. Nice muscle and finesse. Strapped to mono it gives 400 wpc > 8 ohms, 800 > 4 and 1100 > 2, which means the power supply runs out of current before voltage. I use them in my studio where they are surprisingly cleaner strapped than in stereo at moderate levels into a moderate sized hard-to-measure space described earlier. Anyhow, I would have thought that the 400 > 2 ohms in stereo would have been plenty, freeing the other amp for other duties. But the improvement was dramatic enough to assign both amps to mono duties.
The current behavior of your Ayre is of interest. But, more power produces an effortless transient attack that really makes music work emotionally.