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by rubatuga 1931 days ago
Tube amps are amazing for distortion effects, no doubt. But for a 1-to-1 reproduction of audio signals, it's not great.
1 comments

For sure. The even-order harmonic distortion can sound "good" though. It's not my cup of tea but I wouldn't say somebody's crazy if they prefer it!

LPs are a slightly more interesting discussion IMO. Objectively inferior to Redbook audio by a mile. But, given the 30-40dB noise floor even in a "quiet" room, and the THD added by the loudspeakers, I think their real-world performance competes very very well with digital audio...

A lot of the differences people ascribe to CDs vs. LPs may not be due to the medium, but to different paradigms used when mastering audio for one or the other.