The term "bag of tricks" finds its origins in an ancient fable by Aesop, "The Fox and the Cat".
In this tale, a boastful fox claims to possess a whole bag of tricks to outwit hunters, while the humble cat relies on a single, reliable escape plan: climbing a tree. When danger approaches, the cat's simple strategy proves effective, while the fox, overwhelmed by its many options, falls prey to indecision and gets caught.
Too bad for that fox. Today, however, any good high-end audio designer should be armed with their bag of tricks—circuit innovations that, properly implemented, can enhance a design.
Over the past 50 years of designing and imagining new products, our bag of tricks is pretty full. What to do if the sound of a design is too this or that: bright, hard, small, large, thin, bloated, etc.
At the beginning of this long journey our bag was pretty empty: bypassing capacitors, replacing monolithic op-amps with discrete versions, using diodes for emitter resistors, improving open loop response.
Today our bags are full, our choices many.
If a new design doesn't work as well as we'd hoped we don't have to resort to simply running up a tree for safety. We can take our time and try what works.
There's tremendous value in all the years of filling full our bag of tricks.
