The revolution has begun!

No problem convincing me of this revolution with digital active crossovers, pure path digital amplifiers, switching power supplies, etc. , all of which actually happened a while ago. It all works for me. I prefer them by a long shot. But not everybody shares my preferences. They want to hear something a little different than I do. I hear problems with what they like. They hear problems with what I like. So the revolution comes and goes and they stick with their passive crossovers, tube amplifiers, etc. Whatever works for their ears is what they are going to and should continue to use. 

@ricevs 

I never got a pure digital chain working with power dacs all the way down. I couldn't figure out how to do it affordably. So I've always converted to analog after the digital crossovers and equalization and then went with regular class D amps or whatever solid state amp I had around. For a while I had the Panasonic receivers with PurePath power dacs and used them with a Behringer DEQ2496 but didn't do any crossovers, so it was just used with passive speakers. The Panasonics used Texas Instrument chips which I believe had no feedback. From what I can tell there is not a lot to be gained from the power dac concept but I continue to watch with interest. I love the idea, but a D/A converter before the amp can do an awfully good job of providing a clean analog signal, and a decent class D amp with switching power supply can do a bang up job of amplifying that signal cleanly. So there's not much going wrong there that needs remedy, and dacs may be easier to make work better at the line level than at the speaker power level. What I heard with the Panasonic was a very light and airy sound, which I came to realize later was the bass falling off due to lack of feedback. When I hooked up a JVC hybrid digital feedback amp to the same speakers it sounded a lot thicker and fuller with a LOT more bass. I've read they now have power dacs with feedback but I've yet to hear one. I suspect that if they can get the power response to match a standard analog input digital amp being fed with a decent dac it's going to sound very similar.

@bigtwin

But the final word was it doesn’t produce the sound of amps costing 5 or 10 times as much.

What is the sound of amps costing 5 or 10 times as much? Is it an accurate amplification of the input signal, more accurate or more capable of working into lower impedances and maintaining voltage at high current with ultra low distortion and noise than a mere $3000 amp? No, that doesn’t seem to be the case. If anything they add distortion - expensive distortion. And they usually look pretty cool, have some guru’s name behind and some lore about the wizardry and genius applied to the expensive amp. Dr. Earl Geddes said that when he worked on car audio systems they discovered that people actually liked their sound systems to distort when they turned them up. Without that distortion people didn’t feel like they could really get the system to play loud even if the playback was reaching dangerously loud levels! Some people like distortion, and will pay more for it, and because they have a positive response to it they call it "transparent" or "revealing" or some other positive word that describes their personal impression of the distortion. Something about the distortion allows them to suspend their disbelief better and perceive a more realistic sound. It doesn’t work for everybody. The rest of us just shrug our shoulders ’cause it doesn’t sound magically realistic or even particularly good to us, although often it’s still just fine. We’ve heard real instruments and these mega expensive systems continue to exhibit the same audible faults as much less expensive systems. I’ll be honest in saying that I’m disappointed that there’s generally no way forward with even with huge amounts of money to get past certain issues with audio playback electronics, but my ears have demonstrated to me that truth over and over again. To the people who are enraptured with the effects of pre-amps, patch cords and power cables they get the impression that the rest of us are all half deaf. We hear just fine. We just focus more on the major problems that are audibly obvious and not being addressed at all by these devices. It’s not just a simple case of diminishing returns. They’re actually not doing anything at all to address what I want addressed. But that’s ok, because I can come up with my own solutions that get me a little closer. It’s a tough nut to crack and it gives me something to work on.

@bigtwin I didn't mean to come across in attack mode! It's great that you've got what works for you. I have been happy with many systems in my past but always choose to try new things as I become aware of audible issues and decide to tackle them. It's a hobby after all! The nut I'm trying to crack lately is stereo crosstalk reduction from standard 2 speaker stereo setups and the resulting interference patterns and stereophonic degradation that occurs. Polk, Carver, and Bacch for Mac have provided solutions, as well as others. Up-mixers like Dolby Pro Logic are also an option. All interesting and partially satisfying, but I'm working on a slightly different approach that bears some resemblance to Polk's SDA. The direction this is taking me in is starting to look like a very large high fidelity sound bar, which is making me wonder if I'm just reinventing the wheel. Maybe I should listen to some of the better sound bars?

I like the objective versus subjective chart. It gets complicated though since almost everything is biased, colored by personal feelings, equivalent to opinions, and non-factual & non-verifiable. I prefer to use the terms objective and subjective to define types of statements. "The cat is on the mat" is an objective statement whether it is true or not. Ultimately it can never be truly verified so at some point a subjective opinion about the evidence available has come to play. It’s considered proven when the vast consensus of stakeholders agree with the evidence available. "The cat should be on the mat" is a subjective statement by its very nature, no matter the consensus. This whole audio debate is not really about subjectivity and objectivity. It’s about objective explanations that are given for why we have a particular subjective feeling about the way something sounds. It’s really an entirely objective argument. You really can’t argue in any logical sense about subjective issues. So if someone says they love such and such audio component - that can’t be argued with. If they say they love it purely because of the way it produces sound waves and not because of any visual aesthetics, back story, lore of the guru who made it, etc. influencing their sonic perception - they could be wrong! They’re making an objective statement that can be tested when they say things like that. They usually won’t be tested so I consider their explanations as unverified and just accept the fact that they are enjoying their gear for whatever reasons.