Yeah I know the tubes involved here are more or less a buffer that are inline either before or after amplification to add some of that sweet warm and fuzzy tube sound. An actual full tube amp would be kinda neet to see though I don't know if you could really make a high powered on efficient enough for use in a car. Still even with a final tube buffer it has to sound pretty nice.
True it wasn't that long ago that you saw some of the major players doing neat and "out there" things with there products. I remember when coaxial and optiacal were going to replace the ubiquitus unbalanced RCA jacks on out amps and head units and while there are still quite few products that use them most HU and amps still have regualar RCA. Though one of the neat things that has come up is the appearance of Hi-level inputs on amps for easier OEM intigration, it's not an ideal option but it's something that I remember thinking about back when I was a very young install tech at Pacific Sound. Your BT idea is a very interesting one. It would make calibrating your amp far easier and in most cases would let you adjust it on the fly in conjunction with you're HU EQ or in place of.
Though on a more serious note I kinda see it as the car audio scene as a whole going down a similar route that high end home audio has. It's leaving the spotlight mainstream and becoming more of an enthusiast thing, what with the average car's OEM system being good enough at this point for the average joe. That being said it's not dieing just transitioning we're still going to see neat and revolutionary things being developed in the industry but it's probably going to come from the indipendants that sprout up here and there as apposed to the established players.
