G'day all, although high performance op amp circuitry is used universally these days, I admit to having a long standing belief that discrete circuitry sounds better, at least in some circuitry like phono preamps, for example.
My new Rothwell 'Simplex' phono stage, using all discrete transistor circuitry is a pretty good example of this yet it can be difficult to define and quantify what this difference is. 
Maybe other factors are at play, but it is my belief that discrete circuitry 'sounds' somewhat more 'open'/organic. Any comments or thoughts? Regards, Felix.