Atmasphere says:
"OK- you obviously understand how low the distortion levels are we are talking about. I think I did express that 100th of a percent is audible- seems like that needs more emphasis. Since we humans use the odd orders (5th, 7th and 9th) in order to determine how loud a sound is, obviously while the ear is not sensitive to *some* things, this is one thing that the ear is *very* sensitive to. BTW all of this has been known since the 60s and Norman Crowhurst was writing about this subject in the 1950s.
So this is indeed a way that explains why transistor amps can sound harsh while having otherwise flat frequency response. Note also that with many transistor amplifiers, as power output decreases there is a dip in distortion and then it rises again as power output continues to decrease. This is one of the reasons that low level detail is challenging for transistor designs."
First of all, pardon my ignorance for not knowing that you are a producer of tube amplifiers. That just occurred to me last night while reading some of your responses, and I do realize that arguing tube versus solid-state with you is probably not productive.
But your explanation above is such nonsense that I can't help but reply. I'll buy that humans are very sensitive to certain kinds of harmonic distortion, but I'll reiterate that the distortions you are discussing in high-quality solid-state amps are very likely well under -70db, probably more like -80db, and that's below the noise level of the large majority of recordings. Certainly that is under anything reproducible from vinyl.
Furthermore, the 9th harmonic of frequencies above 2KHz is above audibility for most people, especially accounting the -70db level of the tones we're discussing.
So I think quoting research references just clouds your argument. And then concluding that all of this mumbo-jumbo you're discussing indeed describes why solid-state amps sound harsh and lack low-level detail is just so much malarkey. Solid-state amps have neither of these characteristics you claim they do just for promoting your tube products.
Tube amps can demonstrate interactions with loudspeakers this can result in an altered system frequency response, and those alterations can highlight (or hide) details in recordings. But this isn't because of some imagined limitations of solid-state amps, or even negative feedback. I could more easily argue the differences are due to the inferior performance of some tube amps. While everything in audio can be reduced to personal preference, my preference is to try and make as many factors in the reproduction chain as neutral as possible.
