The last ten years have once again demonstrated that high-end amplifiers with part-per-million distortion numbers and other superlative specifications are not very popular. It's like pure distilled water-it has no character and most people don't want to drink it.

How much have preamplifiers and power amplifiers improved over the past decade, and why? The last ten years have once again demonstrated that high-end amplifiers with partpermillion distortion numbers and other superlative specifications are not very popular. It's like pure distilled water—it has no character and most people don't want to drink it. If there has been progress, it has been where the subjective character has been refined in the service of the listener's experience. To paraphrase McLuhan, we are turning our mature technologies into art.

Have the sounds of tubed and solid-state electronics converged toward a common neutrality in the past 20 years? No, just the opposite. Anything resembling convergence to objective neutrality occurred in the late 60s and early 70s, and since then tubes and solidstate have diverged, catering to different needs and tastes. Tube preamplifiers have assumed a popular role—warming up the sound when mated to a solid-state power amplifier. You could speculate that this results in a subjective neutrality in the ears of the listener.

You choose to work primarily in solidstate/single-ended Class A. What are the advantages you see to your chosen technology? At some point in the past I lost interest in complex amplifiers, so now I enjoy extracting really good sound from simple amplifiers. This naturally leads to solidstate Class A, where I can make a goodsounding low power amplifier with as little as a single FET and a light bulb. And I do.

Is Class D competitive with linear designs in sound quality, and if not, will it ever be? Does a $10 bottle of wine compete with a $100 bottle? Of course it does, and it often wins based on price. Right at the moment Class D designers seem to be still focusing on the objectively measured performance of their amplifiers. I expect that at some point the economics of the marketplace will encourage them to pay more attention to the subjective qualities, and then they will probably play a greater role in the high end.

Has amplifier design reached its zenith where further improvements are marginal, or will the next decade produce even better-sounding preamplifiers and power amplifiers? I am optimistic. I think the power amplifiers will be mine, and the preamplifiers will be Wayne Colburn's.

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