I often write about the evils of too much feedback in an audio circuit. But that's likely deceiving.
Feedback on its own is a valuable tool. In the right hands it lowers distortion, increases damping factor, and produces better sound.
But the opposite is true.
If the designer relies upon this crutch to make things work that's when we start to worry. For example, an amplifying system that will not run at all without feedback means that at some point in the signal path we have a moment of instability that needs correcting to operate. Think of a car's cruise control that is constantly speeding up and slowing down.
It'd drive you nuts.
Or, think of how I used to be such a fan of servo controlling woofers. At Genesis (and Arnie Nudell before me at Infinity), we relied upon cheap, high distortion drivers that performed well once feedback was added.
But, they needed feedback to work.
Once Chris Brunhaver demonstrated to me that a properly designed, expensive, low distortion woofer would always beat the servo, getting it right in the first place made a lot more sense.
As in cooking, stereos, and life, crutches are fine but if you can run on your own you'll always be better off.
