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

It’s like saying “I’m pleased with it”.

Pleased, until you find something that comes closer to the mark, for example you find out that you can have something be both smoother and more detailed instead of bright and detailed.

Tube products tend to sound smoother than solid state. This is literally what has kept tubes in business the last 60 years after being declared 'obsolete'. The economic facts here cannot be denied- this has kept tube producers like JJ in business. So that means there are enough people out there that are hearing the same things about tubes.

At that point this becomes easier, because all we have to do is sort out why tubes sound smoother than solid state. And that turns out to be the way they make distortion as opposed to how solid state makes distortion.

So we figured, if distortion is the sonic signature of any audio product, then if you built a solid state amp that had a similar distortion product to a tube amp, it should sound like a tube amp. This turned out to be true.

So there's more to this than just taste.

@atmasphere Understood. The ‘distortion product’ isn’t responsible for shaping or determining all of the various parameters that must be satisfied for a product to be considered musical. I don’t think that you are saying that it is, please clarify.

@atmasphere  : E= mc2 : inherited and learned at different levels.

Taste still is as I explainesd. It's my take and I don't read yet any argument that really " beats " it.

R.

The ‘distortion product’ isn’t responsible for shaping or determining all of the various parameters that must be satisfied for a product to be considered musical. I don’t think that you are saying that it is, please clarify.

@rooze Actually I was saying exactly that. Distortion of any amplifier is also its sonic signature. Do you know of a musical amplifier? It has a musical distortion signature, likely with prominent 2nd and 3rd harmonics.

@rauliruegas Perhaps you could explain how deciBels, which are often called "volume units", are the result of taste rather than human hearing rules. 3dB is a doubling of power in an amplifier, but barely audible as a volume increase, are you saying that is something learned??

@atmasphere Ok, got it. I will have to think more on this. Example, I’d considered PRAT a key component of ‘musicality’ but it would never have occurred to me that PRAT could be a function of an amp’s distortion product or signature.