Those that say that we know tubes are inferior, seem to be making a statement without a lot of evidence or proof.
There is something that is a bit one-eyed in reporting SINAD as the end all, be all, number.
To me, hiss is more distressing than a bit of distortion.
And to me sibilance is pretty distressing.
It would be nice to see something about “N” (noise) independent of THD.
And then the type of distortion may be more important than the level of distortion.
^These^ topics seem to be “science”, at least in terms of psychoacoustics.
Lastly, there is a lot of gnashing of teeth over a 100dB SINAD device and 110 or 120 dB device. But the speakers often have distortion that is only -60 dB down and rising higher and higher.
What do we get when we add a 110dB SINAD amp to -60dB speaker?, is that a lot different than say an 85dB SINAD amp and a state of the art driver which has harmonics at > -60dB?
Why do the amps and other electronics even matter when the speakers are the dominate thing in the system?
And why do SS and Tube equipment seem to sound different, and often able to be indentified in ABX tests?
Is understanding this not also science?