One thing that's very obvious from looking at the current high-end audio landscape is that there is a distinct lack of agreement as to what constitutes a good design. Tube vs. solid state, planar vs. dynamic drivers, no feedback vs. high feedback gain stages, cloth vs. metal dome tweeters, minimalist straight wire with gain vs. massive DSP based circuits -- the list goes on. Talented equipment designers are able to make superb sounding equipment based upon any of these design principals. As witnessed by a recent article in Stereophile and some of the above posts, there is a bias against op-amps in audiophile oriented equipment. However, Boulder, a high-end company if there ever was one, makes extensive use of op-amps. Should we dismiss the validity of Boulder designs because of this? I think not! As listeners, maybe we should pay less attention to circuit design and more to sound quality. I wonder how many of us are truly qualified to discuss the intricacies of circuit design?
BTW, I have a Sony SACD player and for normal CD playback I use an outboard DAC.
