OPamp + Darlington Will it work?

[Fast Eddie D]

So you think more crossover distortion is good for sound quality? Using an opamp means the circuit already uses a lot of feedback (and its global except for the output), including the output in the loop will make it sound worse how? Or are you just regurgitating the no GNFB mantra?

For a circuit like this, I would certainly agree. Nakamichi uses a two stage (no global feedback) design in their stasis amplifiers. It works very well. The output stage is a diamond buffer with constant current sources instead of resistors. The simple circuit presented here is not linear enough to work well without global feedback, I suspect.

Perhaps a nested feedback scheme would work well here? Like 30 dB feedback around the opamp and 20 dB overall gain for a starting point?