Amp improvement since 1994?

Since 1994, I would point to;

1. an increase in differentially balanced designs, where two identical halves are bridged for significantly higher power and lower noise in balanced mode,
2. the use of input transformers for isolation, balanced conversion and other reasons,
3. better parts, power supplies and isolation as has been pointed out above, and
4. most recently the maturation of really good sounding Class D amps like the Ncore NC1200 based amps which, in my system, sounded great.

Regarding improvements since 1994, I believe my "new" amp was manufactured in 1996 and introduced in Jan '97. It is a McCormack DNA-2 LAE that I commissioned Steve to rebuild using everything he has learned about upgrading those amps from circuit changes to the best available parts. The result IMO sounds outstanding and rivals or betters any amp I have owned or heard in my system.

To head off confusion as to why John's reply came before my post, before he posted I made a small change and the formatting on the preview ended up weird so I copied the text, deleted the post and reposted with the revision, but by then John's reply post was already up.

I am not surprised that resurrecting a classic tube amp would have a satisfactory result. Better parts and circuit/wiring layout to reduce noise are two improvements of newer amps over older amps but if the design is strong a rebuild with newer parts can provide significant improvements. In my case, I specifically did not want tubes. If the McCormack amp had not turned out as good as it did, I probably would have been looking at a pair of Ncores.