So the argument is that, if the ear adds distortion, then adding more distortion in similar fashion must be pleasing?
An alternative theory, for which I have no proof (nor care to find any), is that our brain compensates the ear's transfer function and adding additional distortion is less pleasing.
did not have much audio time this year but your "brain compensates the ear" post did stuck.
A bit of searching brought confirmation from an unexpected place: a seller of super duper expensive amps. Pretty bold and cheeky guys too: "
Riviera is the future to be heard in analogue." But then, none of that makes em wrong.
Their
technology page ~repeats what I've been posting:
... many studies have verified the creation of harmonics inside the ear and, specifically, in the cochlea. This is not a new discovery. First reports on this distortion are from Fletcher (yes, the famous of the Fletcher-Munson curve, in the ‘20s); more precise reports came from H.F. Olson (Acoustics, 1947) and many others later. It is interesting to observe that the ear generates really high levels of second harmonic: about 10% for pressure levels of 90dB (not 120dB, 90dB!).
... and nicely combines it with what you said:
The key points are:
1) the high level of distortion the ear self generates;
2) the ear+brain system cancel those harmonics and the perception is that of an absolutely pure tone.
In other words, the hearing system suppresses the harmonics generated by itself. Interesting, isn’t it? Even more interesting is this: the system suppresses the sound of “that” range of harmonics even if they are of “external “ origin, under the condition that the shape, the pattern, is maintained. Quite obvious: the system is programmed to cancel that shape of distortion and it cannot distinguish whether the origin of the distortion is internal or external (some interesting musical phenomena are related to this behavior, i.e. the missing fundamental note). If the harmonics differs from this pattern shape, the ear+brain system detects the harmonics as different tones.
One piece of extra info (at least for me) is that the ear only cancels its own HD spectra. Anything different stays and may sound very meh.
In retrospect, that sounds quite obvious. It cannot really be an universal distortion 'cancellator', just a sort of one-trick-pony.
And they conclude ~what I've been advocating in this thread:
Based on this, we think that an amplifier generating a distortion spectrum similar to that of human ear will result extremely transparent and clean, even if its THD level is relatively high.
Two examples of devices with ear-like-HD are tube-amps and turntables .. and the above is exactly what their (many) fans keep saying.
Anyway, there is still at least one "problem in paradise": haven't seen any serious proof/paper about the brain's HD-cancelling mechanism. Maybe someone else can help ...