The Future of Audio Amplification

@stevecham 

I'm certain that I could tell the difference between .02% and .005%. I could tell you if it's higher or lower order, and I could tell you the phase as well if it's the low order type. Phase is irrelevant beyond 4th order. I spent most of a year voicing my amp for my speakers, trying this and trying that, and I definitely know what different kinds and amounts of distortion sound like. 

I think it's pretty safe to say that an amp that makes 10% distortion at 2 watts isn't even hi-fi by the definition of the term.

@kosst_amojan
That is true- do you know of such an amplifier?

To step back into shallower waters here:
So much of our world has become increasingly visual and on-demand. Screens proliferate and dominate.  I can say the under-25 generation, having taught them for 20 years, can be even more capricious visually-reliant than ever, and streaming files has long since replaced object permanence.

And yet music plays as large a part in their lives as it did in ours. In fact, I would say that many teens and 20-somethings have a larger musical palette in their playlists than most of the mixtapes we had.

But the idea of having a "listening room" is a superfluous concept to most Americans, especially the ones with too much month at the end of the money. The idea of assembling a system costing 4 and 5 and 6 figures just for listening to music, especially nowadays, is pretty alien and unsympathetic. And since music has become transient files; since much music is listened to through ear buds and in cars; since Alexa and Siri, Sonos and Spotify, are cropping up in kitchens and living rooms everywhere; and since glittering OLEDs and other screens, including tablets, phones, and laptops, now dominate consumer consciousness, I can understand the aging of the audiophile.
Audiophilia is a niche interest anyway, like any dedicated hobby. And if a soundbar and an Onkyo receiver from Crutchfield or Best Buy is enough for most people, I can't see amplification expanding like it did 30 years ago, especially in America which seems to favor the multi-chassis set-up.

Mr M says he does.