I was listening to Aric Improta - Blur-Lights In The Videodrome today, which opens with the following quote from Brian Eno:
It just reminded me of a low SINAD amp that sounds great. IE: An objectively bad amplifier that is subjectively good. So I thought I should share. 
This speculative and off topic (Moderator please move).
IMO (yes, opinion) the value of harmonics is in smoother, more predictable, and less disruptive transitions, not audible distortion. It’s not about static states or continuous pure tones – modern digital video looks great with a nonmoving image but breaks into little fragments with rapid movement or a flock of birds. Old pre-digital TVs (CRT tubes and rooftop antennas) broke up in different ways, but never ever choppy fragments.
Systems with measurable audio harmonics sound to me as if they turn potential fragments into smoother audio blur. This means the tube amps that score at the bottom of ASR’s charts actually ‘fill in’ the gaps and often sound superior to ultra clean technical amps.
A fast, technical amp that measures well (e.g., THX family) can easily sound like sandpaper because time points 1 - 2 - 3 are fully split apart. Tube amps with excessive distortion sound awful/blown-out too, as 1 blurs with 2 blurs with 3. I posit that the low-level harmonics of tubes and the momentum/resonances of constantly moving dynamic drivers inherently smooth over the rough fragments.
I feel like deleting this message as I write it…ugg…
Just moving it here for now - maybe we can find a better place for this discussion since I’m not sure how active this thread is.
Yeah it’s certainly an interesting topic as to how tube amps and elevated harmonics are perceived. This is one area I’d like to see more research done.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past year it’s that amplifier distortion is… good? Well that’s too reductive because there are amplifiers that measure good and sound good too, like the Schiit Midgard. But in general this has been my experience.
Here’s what I think could also be a factor: the mastering process for a lot of studio recordings is putting too much processing into making it sound clear on crappy listening equipment. The video equivalent of this is adding a lot of edge enhancement when mastering a DVD to make the image appear clearer. On small TVs this produced a better image but on large, sharp TVs it produced a glow around high contrast objects that was thoroughly distracting.
I am glad you did not
Thanks for having the balls to write that. You should not be fearful for having done so. But I respect that you are and I am inviting the same no doubt. I’ve been reluctant to weigh in here and will probably regret it. But you triggered me.
I like your video resolution analogy. (or is it a metaphor, simile? I always mix those up). Recently my wife saw a real high resolution TV showing a program we have binged on together on our dated TV. She asked me why it looked fake. And it did. It was so crystal clear, but somehow the movement felt manufactured.
I often associate what I am hearing with the visual. I was a photographer before digital capture was even a wet dream. I spent many hours in my dark room. I looked at film grain with a loupe to the aroma of developers and fixers and single malt in a cramped red lit room (and Led Zeppelin blaring through a mono speaker). Now I use 100% digital cameras. Can’t say I enjoy it. It is now possible, and often done, to over sharpen an image. There is an etched quality to such an image. This is to say nothing of saturation, fake skies, added contrast. AI has arrived for sure. Besides, photography transitioned a looooong time ago to realism being perceived as better. This is despite the fact that it was originally an art form, not a journalistic endeavor designed to record reality. I posit here that our hobby has fallen to the same false god, that hyper realism is some how better than art and that our measurements show us what is more godly.
All of these headphones we are discussing are just portable concert halls. One takes you closer to the stage, another is more expansive. One gives more bass, another gives over sharpened treble. Is one better than the other if it allows you to wince at every sung s or t in a vocal? We like to discuss details that have nothing to do with a headphone’s ability to put us into a space that feels like the real space.
But if we also allow for the kind of tactility I am referencing and tying to your video analogy, accuracy becomes an irrelevant chase for a sharp image. Isn’t what we really want an image of the sound that transports us? Does it matter at all if there is distortion if it serves the image well? Are we trying to remove distortion from original content that is chock full of it anyway? Is there any benefit to “doing no harm”, or “as the artist intended”? Or can we all just simply be excused to enjoy music with some acoustic romanticism sprinkled in? I’ll take my music with a little Gaussian blur, thank you very much.
Here’s a scan of an analog (paper) print of a 4x5 format negative. As I hold it in my hand, there is nothing more analog than what it is. It has never been pixelated until I share it with you. It is a pure product of chemistry.
Photo removed due to, well, you can imagine.
That is my wife, in a stairwell at the Met Opera as she was running onto stage (full disclosure, it is a friends capture, not mine). Ironic, yes, because I can only share a digital scan of a film negative. There is no way to pass this around. Does it contradict my point? Maybe. But in this case the digital version of the image is resolute enough to show how NOT RESOLUTE the original negative is. Its a fucking blurry image taken with late 19th century technology. Does it matter if you view it on an 8K screen? You should see it in print! Tactility. On paper, printed in a dark room, it feels like the basement of the Village Vanguard sounds. Real.
My point is, I could go into to Photoshop and try to “correct” this image to modern standards. But it would show it. There would be artifacts from that attempt. They would be ugly. They would distract from over all impact of a dated, antique, greyscale image. Blurry as it is.
I’d rather see it as it is. It’s not just that it is my wife, the image has value in its imperfections, its blurriness, its distortions. This is an artistic image that would be incomplete without its imperfections. I am preferring at the moment to hear music through what is probably a poorly measuring tube amplifier. For the same reasons I am fine to look at my film images as film, I am ok to accept some distortion in my chain if it feels good. And, yes, I am saying we can feel these things. Gasp.
I guess that may put me firmly in the subjective camp?
Brilliant post. And I’m another one in your camp, who put in time with developers and fixers and stop baths, polycontrast filters, burning in and dodging by hand not photoshop. And toners. And photo-oils. And I know just what you mean.
dodge and burn baby! I miss it all honestly, and wish I had not eBayed it all away. All a man really needs is some TriX and D76. At least that is where I ended up after trying more flammable shit!
D-76 1:1. Edwal FG7. Illford film and Plus -X. My Dad remembers “Super XX” with an ISO between Plus and Tri-X. Dektol. Photo-Flo. Glacial Acetic Acid. Hypo Clearing Agent.
Ferrachrome plates. Old diapers for lint free cloths.
Later Ektachrome process E-2 and E-4. 47th street photo. Cambridge Camera Exchange. Olden. Willowby’s. Popular and Modern Photography.
OK, you creds are well established and your passport is well stamped. You had me at Glacial Acetic Acid.
Hell, @MokhaMark, I never had single malt in the darkroom. I’m envious. Took me down memory lane.
Geez, this forum is full of beautiful discussion, I am learning about way more than just audio… thank you
You’ve absolutely nailed it! I’ve been playing around with the distort app recommended by @GoldenSound before I commit to buying a tube amp, and that texture is exactly what I’m loving about it - it’s more pleasing on the ear than the coarse “cleanliness” of my Topping A70. Damn I didn’t know what all the tube fuss was about but I get it now! So cool 
Everyone should read this. Wisdom that could repair so many pointless rifts between us 