What is wrong with negative feedback?


I am not talking about the kind you get as a flaky seller, but as used in amplifier design. It just seems to me that a lot of amp designs advertise "zero negative feedback" as a selling point.

As I understand, NFB is a loop taken from the amplifier output and fed back into the input to keep the amp stable. This sounds like it should be a good thing. So what are the negative trade-offs involved, if any?
solman989
Rleff, that is mostly right; damping factor is the ratio of load impedance vs that of the amplifier driving it, and can be increased by adding negative feedback. Some amps achieve a high damping factor with zero feedback, the Ayre is an example of that.

The question is whether high damping is desirable. There are no known speakers requiring a damping factor of over 20, and there are some that are better off if the damping factor is between 0.1:1 and 2:1.

This is very much a part of the equipment matching conversation!
"There are no known speakers requiring a damping factor of over 20"

I am not aware of any speakers that publish damping requirement specs. What are some?

I am aware that different designs benefit differently from varios damping factors, but not that vendors specify damping requirements for their speakers in that determining which combos sound good is often a largely subjective determination?

I'm not sure if DF>100 makes much sense since inductor in series with the woofer has resistance in order of 0.08ohm.

8/0.08=100
Ralph, this is the wrong place to ask, but would you care to answer the math as proposed by:

http://www.transcendentsound.com/amplifier_output_impedance.htm

Just trying to get a grasp on the "how". The other controversial article is not related to this thread.

Fascinating relating electronics to chaos theory. Maybe we can use it to predict long term digital format forecasts.