Is this clipping?


I listen to jazz music mostly, using a 10 watt SET (300b) amp and a pair of high efficiency single driver speakers. Sounds great at any volume with any and all jazz. But when I try to play HEAVY rock music loudly, it sounds like a completely different system: The soundstage flattens, instruments blur, and dynamics are lost.
We all know that a system like mine is not intended for certain types of musics, but I wonder what is the main reason for this behavior. Is it clipping? Is it a characteristic of this particular type of tube or amplifier? Or is it a charateristic of full-range drivers like Fostex, Lowther, PhyHP?
psag
My opinion is in many cases it is totally consistent artistically with the kind of music being performed, if not necessarily teh result of teh artists vision.

Most artists are not influential enough to control factors that affect the marketability of the product.

Perhaps with smaller indie labels.

It is what it is and in the end its mostly all good though often far from perfect.

Compressed or clipped dynamics are more bothersome to me than over loudness. They are three different things. With some pop/rock recordings, together they can constitute teh triple whammy for sure.

Not all women need look like Minka Kelly to be attractive nor act like Mother Teresa to be good.

BTW I believe myself to hold pretty high standards in general, but I am a big yin/yang person philosophically and as a result am able to not let recording quality cause me a dilemma these days.

Sure, they could all be better. So what? In the pseudo words of the immortal Frank ZAppa 'They are what they is".
Those three things are usually delivered hand in hand in hand these days. You might be right: the "so what?" attitude could be Yin and the recordings could be Yang.
Be very careful to keep your amp under control. When you allow it to clip, you can and will damage your speakers. If you just hear a flattening of soundstage, etc....it could very well be the recording...one way to find out is to make the system soft and see if the depth and other audiophile issues return.