Still, any piece of electronics has a "sound." Nobody understands what distortion measurements correlate with a particular sound.
No, any piece of equipment does not have a sound. This is Philelore and is not true.
Ricevs has a longstanding business as a modifier of electronics. He has determined that different materials in wires have different sounds. If you don't want to believe his claims, be aware that there are several of his customers I have known personally who vouch for his claims by being pleased with his mods.
And I personally know lots of people who believe stuff that is absolutely not true, but that does not make them or the large amount of people who believe the same thing correct.
Technicians are still in the dark ages of understanding the human hearing mechanism.
Technicians perhaps, lots of other people not so much.
Just because you may not find reliable measurements that explain sonic differences, understand that the educated ear is THE best measurement tool of all, in terms of sonic evaluation.
The ear is many things. A good measurement tool it is not. It is a poor measurement tool and a pretty good detection tool. However, it is easily fooled, and hence you must help it along so that it does not make mistakes. Going to the last statement you make, it is very easy to simulate all sorts of distortion, highly accurately, controllably, repeatably, and then see how people respond to it. Anyone can do it with just a bit of Google research and not a lot of time. It is why I am suspect of so many claims of distortion audibility (as are many people) because it would be easy to demonstrate and validate.
A sincere doctor often can't get his article published because it conflicts with the agenda and business interests of the prestigious journal.
Oh come one. Put together the study, do quality research, repeatable study. You may not get into one of the more prestigious journals but there are so many that are desperate for content anyone can get almost anything published. A good medical doctor will listen, but they will also try to understand enough about the drug to know whether the claimed side effect is remotely possible because not all side effects will be possible. If they believe blindly that the drug is causing the side effect the patient claims, they could very well miss the real underlying cause of what they are experiencing.