Am wondering whether megafiddle drives a car or truck or if megafiddle is still hitchin' old Dobbin to the buggy... <grin>

Well, software control of power amps is a trend as far as the engineering of large soundsets is concerned. It brings a level of control over certain things that was hitherto rather difficult if not impossible to implement. With more and more use of software controlled environments, with virtual mixers on pad screens using wifi communication to control house PA systems and the like, with the advent of Line Array speaker systems that depend upon Time Alignment routines, it just makes sense.

But as I've been trying to point out, all that is not needed for Rachael's two speakers in the home, so why should she have to purchase it and why should she have to be able to deal with it just to power her home speakers? The answer is that she does not have to deal with it. There also is indeed a reliability factor, any time an engineerin design increases component count, which increase can be for perfectly valid reasons if one considers the *context* for which such features are implemented, which often makes them desirable features under the right circumstances, said component count will automatically change the statistical odds of the possibilities of failure.

As far as consumer products that incorporate software control, one will be hard put to find appliances of any kind that do not contain at least a minimal processor and bit of software of some kind inside them. Old linear or analog controls have already been religated to the trash heap of history. Even the lowly Washing Machine and Dishwasher now have Digital controls in them for timing and such, there likely is not a single factory left able to build analog clock movements. And for good reason.

The Crown amplifiers with the digital comm and other features is bound to increase in utility and the robustness of such will be totally solved over time, that's my prediction.


--Mac