Amir says, "When it comes to non-linear distortions, audiophiles are notoriously poor at hearing those artifacts. It is for this reason that even poor measuring gear is praised as sounding good."
Tsk Tsk, another generalization without supporting data- bad science. Actually, everyone is poor at hearing non-linear distortions because they occur naturally around us and even in our heads, inside our ears to be specific. That is one reason tube amps without negative feedback sound better but SS amps without negative feedback can sound good too but look worse on paper.
You complain about my statement not being scientific and general and proceed to give me the very definition of those in your response! :)
I am happy to back my statement with proper research and references. To hear small impairments you need to know what to listen for. And for that, you need to understand the underlying system. Audiophiles tend to be poor at both even though some walk around thinking they are very gifted on that front.
For above, reason, when we care about reliable data, we use trained listeners. Earlier I showed research by Dr. Sean Olive on reliability of different groups of listeners when testing speakers:
Notice how poorly audio reviewers did which audiophiles tend to regard to have superior ability to evaluate other gear. Harman research showed that you need to have 10X more trials or number of testers to create the same set of reliable data as their trained listeners.
Trained listeners are extensively used in other domains such as hearing compression artifacts. When at Microsoft, and without that knowledge initially, I suggested to my manager of signal processing group that we recruit the hundreds of audiophiles we had at the company to identify impairments in codec. Blind test was created and distributed to them. A while later my manager came back telling me how poorly they had done. And that they were essentially no better than general public, and far worse than our trained listeners. I asked him to give me an example. He gave me one of the tests where I easily found the artifact. I apologized for wasting his time and from then on, we continued to use our trained listeners (of which I was one).
It took me about 6 months of intensive training to learn to find small non-linear artifacts. Those skills now allow me to hear them in broad set of tests which most audiophiles would not dare to take let alone pass. I gave an example of this in video I post on blind testing (I think).
Back to your comment, I have tested a ton of tube gear. I find their distortion to either not be audible or simply manifest in brightness, lack of clarify and edginess. Yet audiophiles make the claims you repeat. There is not one publish controlled test which backs their or your position. None. So if you are a fan of "science," I suggest not repeating folklore like that which can't be proven. At least not on the same breath as telling me I was unscientific.