A discrete audio opamp I designed a while back and that's used in AVA products to this day will celebrate its tenth anniversary next year. So, I thought the time was right to say some things about it and discrete audio in general.
The Perfect Copy Machine
If you peruse the things that Frank Van Alstine said in the previous century, one of the gems you might find is his view that audio gear shouldn't re-interpret an artist's intent. Rather, it should function as a perfect copy machine. Others have referred to this philosophy as "straight wire with gain."
I believe Frank needed to emphasize this at the time largely because of the increasing fashionability of single-ended class A tube power amps -- which as a rule came with with low linearity and high output impedance. The occasionally pleasant effect this combination can create became a marketing lever for many manufacturers. "Warm. Rich." Buzzwords for a loose low end and signal masking. What they never said was, "Not as the artist intended." Nor, "Works great for some stuff, not so much on others."
The Right Amount of Integration
When it comes to hi-fi gear, how much functional integration in a box is good and how much is too much? Is that product that includes a streamer, a DAC with Bluetooth, a preamp, and a power amplifier really going to serve your long-term musical interests? Or does the path to long-term happiness require some separation of concerns? This post attempts to answer some of these questions from an AVA perspective.