Hi Atma, I do grant you that these show hotels seem to have lucky spaces and very very unlucky ones. Trying to Tame the wildness of some suite I am sure must be a frustratingly thankless task. . . . perhaps as easy as herding cats?! Is one of the problems that you manufacturers end up having to select a room from a floor-plan without having the opportunity of sonically testing the space ahead of time? Perhaps RMAF organizers should be encouraged to assign some of the odder sounding rooms to the admittedly few static displays. . . do not need good acoustics to select LPs from a bin, after all.
Back now to the discussion of artifacts and stereotypical audible flaws in switching amps, without here pointing fingers to models/brands in particular, I observe that that there are a number of such amps today that do still sound stereotypically 'digital' to a slight or greater extent. Among 'non stereotypical' switching amps, I have already waxed poetic on this and other threads about the two switching amps that I truly like as of the end of 2007. I should also point out though, that I have heard switching amps that did not seem to have any audible 'digititis', and still I was not able to like. In one particular case, the sound of one seemed overly dark to a fault, almost if the designer were attempting to overcompensate for expected stereotypical flaws. not sure if I was having a bad audio moment or I was perhaps in a 'dark' sounding suite. I did discuss the device with other audiophiles that have listened to it under various circumstances and received confirmation of my cursory impression.
As you said, the switching technology is young and evolving rapidly. It's certainly worth watching with an open mind. It is equally true that it may in the end turn out into the proverbial flash in the pan. . . and 10 years from now, instead of having grown to broader maturity, it may be simply remembered as a valiant experiment. We will have to wait and see.
