Negative feedback, or NFB, has taken a bad rap in the high-end audio community. Misunderstood by much of the audio press, and occasionally abused by audio designers, many audiophiles shun the idea like anthrax.

Audiophiles love to characterize the sonics of pretty much everything using words that really don't apply to sound. Terms range from the general such as "Tight", "bright", "laid back", "warm," to the absurdly abstract such as my all-time favorite, "pace."

Many die-hard conservative audiophiles at first eschewed the use of a subwoofer as a novelty trick of home theater, unsuitable for music reproduction. As the frequency extension benefits of a dedicated subwoofer became more and more undeniable . . .