What is meant exactly by the description 'more musical'?

@atmasphere You're right--a bit over my head on the technical side but i appreciate the effort.  What about hybrid amps that don't use feedback--claiming to use zero feedback to "maintain harmonic integrity"--eg Aesthetix--still a problem?  I'm not asking you to comment on that product line--just the design.  Having owned both tube and ss amps i am looking at hybrids as a solution to the problems you outline above--basically a more "musical" amp to drive low efficiency speakers.

the some people don’t like the Strad comment was all about taste…

The ear brain is king but tastes are the puppet master for most all of audio… and more..

Interesting , some people can hear negative feedback = TIM and simple temporal distortion in addition to the various forms of harmonic distortion Ralph and a FEW ear/brain centric designers ( very rightly but not completely ) focus on.

The comment about the long term ( listening) vs short term ear brain appeal is under rated…otherwise many a good listener would pay WAY more attention to level matching ( RIP Roger Modjeski…Lord, i miss you )

Thankfully music isn’t a sine wave, although i am sure there is a shoegazer sub variant approaching this… feedback looks great w sine waves…

IF you want an excellent evaluation of the temporal distortions get a variable negative feedback amplifier RM-9 , adjust for level and evaluate the stereo image using the excellent Opus 3 disc… Depth of Image

As for a Hybrid amplifier that i find passes the LONG term musical listening test, I can recommend 3:

Vanderteen M7 HPA, Aesthetix Atlas, Music Reference RM-200

there are of course more…..

and IF you can’t hear how an amplifier destroys temporal information, try getting your system in phase… and or considering a speaker that passes the impulse test… Since getting the electronics in phase is free, start there….

@wyoboy My comment

So if you want the amp to be musical, its important that the distortion vs frequency is a flat line across the audio band (or nearly so- 10KHz is probably acceptable since harmonics at 20KHz won't get a lot of attention). Tube amps with little or no feedback have no problem doing this

has the answer, if its a bit obtuse. Any amp with zero feedback will have distortion vs frequency as a flat line. So it will have a good chance at being musical whether tube or solid state. There are other factors relating to topology of course so this isn't sure fire.