"enjoy the MUSIC NOT DISTORTIONS." Friends, Raul has said a lot with that statement.
Forgive me, but I've been down an epistemological rabbit hole for the last couple of years with respect to in home reproduction of music. So I am going to challenge what might seem like an indisputable maxim. Now mind you, I replaced my dearly beloved 300B Frankensteins with my equally beloved Atma-Sphere M-60's, precisely because the Franks, in my system and room, were driven to OBJECTIONABLE levels of distortion. It would seem clear, would it not, that I would accept Raul's premise? Sorry. I have to ask, "What is wrong with enjoying distortions?" If a 300B amp delivers an engaging listening experience with 3-4% 2nd harmonic distortion, so what? What is wrong with that? Does a 300B with all of its glorious midrange bloom deliver a typical live venue experience? I would answer that question no, but clearly others would answer that with an emphatic yes! I don't frequent the same venues as Charles, and those venues with which I have experience don't even deliver a consistent voice. Charles isn't objectively wrong or right to prefer his Franks over other amps he has tried. Cal3713 isn't objectively wrong or right to prefer the Duelunds over something else. The have gotten what they sought from the choices they made. That means they made good choices.
I'm not so sure that accurate reproduction of a live venue is even the desirable target. I once heard Isaac Stern performing a work in a venue that was dead. Somehow, he managed to emulate the death cry of a tortured cat with his violin. I would not be interested in reproducing that performance in my listening room.
We all listen critically to music for a reason, but I suspect we do not all listen to music for the same reason. In fact, I as an individual listener don't always listen for the same reason. Sometimes, I want Beethoven. Sometimes I want Chopin or Schubert. Sometimes, most of the time actually, I want Bach. Why? I won't take the time to provide the answer. If you know the music, you understand my point.
There is a place for first principle knowledge, and there is a place for experientially (or experimentally) gained knowledge, and there are different types of experiential knowledge. Those who achieve their goals have usually done so by balancing the science and the esthetic elements.
Sorry for the rant. Too much intolerance of intellectual diversity has become the norm.