Are future improvements in Amp/PreAmps slowing to a crawl?

Sound travels through all kinds of things at all kinds of different speeds, even air depending on pressure and humidity. Amplifier distortion is the product of nonlinearity in the gain devices, pure and simple. On the other hand, most people feel that amps with extremely low distortion figures sound analytical and lifeless. Like it or not, you're listening to recorded music on a stereo, both of which are the products of hundreds if not thousands of opinions about microphones, recording, mixing, components, designs philosophies, materials, and speakers. 
The question of how to build an amp that conveys all that information seems to be answered so far as I can tell. I'm listening to one example of how it can be done right now. 

kosst_amojan

"...most people feel that amps with extremely low distortion figures sound analytical and lifeless"

Therefore if you have an amp with no distortion it will sound bad?
The answer is no. Those other amps that have low dist figures sound bad for a plethora of reasons - not because it measures low.

Hear is a simple formula:
Live = no distortion
therefore
no distortion = Live

The live nature of a sound event is exposed by the stable speed at which it is flowing toward you (Mach One). The formula above breaks down as soon as you alter the speed or velocity of the delivery system. The electrical version of the event is the odd man out. You have to force the electrical representation to include the environment of the original venue.
All you want to do is generate an air pattern in your listening room that is an exact copy of the air pattern at the hall. This air pattern is merely a log of 2 things. Instantaneous air pressure or amplitude (Vertical axis) and time (Horizontal axis) . If you alter either on of those properties - you have distortion.

Conventional amplifiers only deal with amplitude. Any work done to reduce its distortion is in the vertical axis and is a poor attempt at keep the timing right.

If on the other hand you maintain constant velocity in the amplifier then you have emulated one of the properties of air - mainly its velocity which is zero. A zero velocity medium guarantees that sound waves traveling through it are not artificially accelerated or de-accelerated. Remember the sound travels at Mach One. The medium is motionless. The sound appears the be live simply because of its stable "playback" speed. 

If you find outstanding (better than anything else on the market or ever mass produced) measured performance to be a meaningless achievement then how do you propose to measure what you find important? I would put it to you and everyone here that if you can’t measure performance then there is no way to track improvement.

Perhaps this is the fundamental problem in the audiophile industry - it has become a fashion clothing industry that suits people’s tastes and follows trends with no goal to improve anything because "good enough" in clothing materials was achieved 30 years ago - so now it is about color and style in an endless circle of ever fluctuating fashionable trends.

Measurements and giving them high weighting, is the last refuge of people who don’t know anything and have no trust in who they are.

The negative side of that, is when the charlatan poses as the wise and tries to take advantage of those who don’t know anything...or is merely illiterate and does things that a charlatan might, in their ignorance. But it sells anyway, as the audience does not know any better.

...and the negative side of that, is when those who don’t know..deciding on how to be safe in the face of uncertainty... decides that all of them ---are charlatans. To throw them all down the same hole, when the gift of discrimination and intelligence in the given matter does not come to them.

Which kinda explains the nature of the divide and quandary we tend to drift into today.

You see it playing out on this board and all other audio boards -- thread, after thread, after thread, without relief.

To continue:

As long as we seek, this will continue, without abatement.

Any form of of screeching, hating, throwing insults or rocks about will change nothing. This sort of written communication is about reflection, not transference.

As long as the given person seeks and can stand the heat...their contribution, either negative or positive in nature, that response pattern will likely not ever change.

Until they do.

Some part of them will change and then they will likely leave these boards, never to return.

To be replaced by the next given mouthpiece with attitude, be that attitude/expression harsh or kind and helpful.

The wheel never changes -only the fool nailed to it.

goffkait

" I'm afraid they've run out of options trying to somehow improve upon the current model. More designers must think outside the box."

That's whats happening for sure. There is only so much tweaking you can do to a given amp or preamp design. You have to go outside the box to get new ideas to try. Unfortunately most designers have given up looking for that "new" circuit that will give them the best results possible.

I saw a video of Robert Harley (TAS) interviewing a panel of the top audio designers at an audio show in 2015. It was very interesting but the last question had a response that honestly I did not expect. He (Harley) asked them "Do you think we will ever be able to reproduce the live experience in music?"

The answer from all members on the panel was the same - "no". This tells me that these designers have hit a brick wall in their designs - sort of like writers block. 

This is why I felt it was necessary years ago to take a different approach. I needed to bypass that brick wall by simply using an entirely different approach. If you step back and take a look at the sound reproduction process and you had no idea where to begin - you have to boil it down to the least number of steps. First you want to capture the live acoustic event as performed in the hall.  Then you want to release or playback the copy into your listening room. If it is a perfect copy (like a clone) it will transfer all of the attributes of the original performance including the belief that the performance is happening now (live)