[sdiy] MOTM 440 4P LPF questions

[David G Dixon]

I saw and heard a MOTM 440 in action at the PNW synth meet (thanks, John
Rice, for letting me ruin your patch!), and I have a couple of questions
about it.  (It sounded wonderful, by the way, so if my questions are taken
as criticism, that is certainly not my intent.)

If these questions are impertinent, or if answering them would involve
giving away state secrets, then feel free to slap me down.  Otherwise, here
goes:

1) Can anyone tell me which stage's output is being fed back for the
"Enhance" setting?

2) This additional feedback is obviously at fixed gain.  What is it?

Here's a more philosophical question:

3) Why should a "discrete OTA" give any better results than an IC-based OTA
or VCA?  After all, an IC is discrete on the inside.  (A direct comparison
of four different 4P filters, some discrete and some IC-based, on
Muffwiggler today would seem to debunk this whole "discrete" business, given
that they all sound identical, which suggests that this whole "discrete"
argument might just belong in the same category as the various gold-plated
audiophile claims we often laugh about here.  I'm just curious as to the
reasons why such circuits would or should be better.)