I do not understand that logic. The circuits in these equipment are no different than your circuits, actually they are more advanced and sophisticated. Are you making a point that a Soulution or CH Acoustics piece of equipment vails the sound because they are more sophisticated? What is the point here? Clearly explain how a circuit meant to alter will vail more than a circuit intended to amplify. They can both be transparent as they can be couldn’t they? Or is your point that they alter therefore they must vail? There is simply no good logic there with that argument. These pieces were designed to do a job and that is just what they do. No different than any other piece of proven gear. You do realize that equipment like these, and most likely of lesser quality, is what is used to produce the music that we listen to. Could it be that they did not harm the music then but now they could? Help me see your point here.
Hm. I doubt they are significantly more sophisticated. It might interest you to know that we have two patents for a method of direct coupling to a balanced line; thus creating an alternate method other than a transformer of meeting the criteria of AES48. Plus I hold a patent in the field of class D, and we've engineered a class D amp entirely from scratch... if you have a grasp of engineering principles, you might consider that you mis-stated that. But this is not to denigrate those products.
We might have a semantic issue here. If a circuit is altering the signal other than simple amplification, in my book by definition its introducing a coloration, a veil. As best I can make out you don't use that same definition. FWIW the definition I use is a common ethos in high end audio.
All studio equipment causes a loss of definition- starting at the microphones. Run that thru a mic transformer and you have introduced phase shift due to bandwidth limitations, as well as distortion (transformers have to be loaded properly to prevent ringing, but that isn't the same as saying they make no distortion).
Then the signal proceeds to the mic preamps where more colorations are introduced. Sometimes that is very slight; for example opamps can be used to be
very neutral. Even with modern opamps though, you're asking for trouble if you expect more than 20dB of gain out of them due to Gain Bandwidth Product limitations. That is why older opamps tended to have a 'sound'; their GBP was lower.
You can't escape colorations due to distortion. The more blocks you have in the amplification chain, the more distortion you will have. I've heard the old saw about how distortion is 'so low it can't be heard' which is often false. Higher ordered harmonics which are common in solid state gear are easily heard by the ear as brightness and harshness; the ear uses them to sense sound pressure so if any are added the ear attributes that tonality.
So if you have barely a hint of distortion from some upstream source like a mic preamp or mixer, a simple twist of the treble control can enhance harmonic distortion that may have been a lot harder to hear prior to that adjustment.
People often accuse SETs of being 'tone controls' and to a certain degree I think this is correct- I have a pet theory that one reason they became popular was due to the 2nd harmonic they add, which nicely complements the dry sound of digital back in the 1990s when SETs entered the high end scene.
Using an actual tone control or an SET, using a certain WE transformer, a device that adds reverb, compression, limiting, DSP processing and so on is adding coloration and distortion. I don't see how anyone could see it any other way (although I can accept that you might, even though I don't understand it). If I were a manufacturer of such product, I'd probably want to make sure that as my equipment did its job, it did it as cleanly as possible. But its adding coloration no ifs, ands or buts. I just updated one of my Mutron Biphases with new regulation and filter capactors. I also replaced some of the opamps, changed some coupling caps from nonpolar to film, all in an attempt to minimize the 'sound' of its older opamp circuitry, while retaining its famous phase shifting ability. I have this piece rack mounted with my other gear. The reason I did this was so I can add phase shift in post.
I'm not attaching a value here! I've found after 46 years in manufacturing that audiophiles all express their love of music in different ways. Some like to trade gear constantly. Some seek only the first press of LPs. Others have minimal systems, some employ multiple amps and DSP room correction. What is important in my mind is that we all have fun doing what we like to do.
