Solid State vs. Tubes - What if Transistors came first?

"Cold and technical. Not warm and natural while slightly, but pleasantly, imperfect. "

This argument reminds of the argument of amplifier feedback.  There are those who believe feedback is better and there are those who believe feedback is worse.  There are measurements that show feedback has lower distortion therefore it must be better, but listening impression tells another story.  Just like solid state vs. tube.  SS measures better but somehow tubes sound better to human ears but less than perfect with measurement.
Back to feedback, I had to chance to read an article from Pass Lab, and apparently he did some measurements on how distortion affected by feedback.  Audiogon does not allow posting a picture so I can't post that graph here, but what he found that although feedback does reduce "overall" distortion, it increases periodic distortion.  That is the distortion curve of feedback is "overall" lower vs. non-feedback, but there are spikes in the distortion curve that extends to multiple higher frequencies.
Back to the argument of SS vs. tubes, I suspect something similar is happening to SS.  It's the higher distortion order which extend to higher frequencies that make it sounds cold and technical.  These higher distortion spikes are very narrow so they don't add up to much in term of measurement, but the ears are sensitive to it.

I believe these higher order spikes fundamentally make music sound less than musical.  It's the extra high frequencies that our ears apparently don't really like.

Man, I love peaches, hamburgers and eggplant!  Snakes?  Not so much. 🐍💩

Bloody transistors age too, and well-made tube amp should last for 100 years with maybe couple of repairs.
I don't like only two things about tube amps - bad tubes occasionally blowing up and running out supply of good NOS tubes. I am sorry, I don't want third world made parts in my equipment. Some Russian tubes would do because they have a very long standing tradition of making tubes for the military. But you can't count on them, they may stop making them at any moment.

geoffkait,

"Glubson, your statement is definitely true, and carefully worded..."

You have not been giving me enough credit. All my statements are like that.

I like peaches. Eggplant only when it is unrecognizable. Babaganoush and similar.