It looks like a debate to me.

Fantastic post, Ralph (Atmasphere).  It should be a "stickie," if that were possible here.  And FWIW every word of it makes perfect sense as far as I am concerned.

Best regards,
-- Al

@atmasphere has pretty well spelled it out; here’s the Cliffs’ Notes version, IMHO....

-The manufacturer makes a product; ’cherry picks’ the details.
-The vendor displays/demo’s same in the best way possible.
-The buyer ’places’ his/her bet on the item.
-The likelihood that the outcome is Great or Perfect is subject to items’ final location, application, and attached components.
-Buyer forms final Opinion of outcome.
-Buyer posts on AG to cheers/jeers.

That ought to cover it....

It should not be a debate. If you have a tube amp that ’measures poorly’ yet seems to sound just fine (as has often been seen in the pages of Stereophile) and an amplifier that measures just fine and is really ’neutral’ but not particularly musical then you have two amplifiers that sit at the opposite spectrum of the same problem, which is distortion and what to do about it.

I will argue that we are also more susceptible to damping factor and speaker/cable impedance than we think we are, but I, in a very lage part, agree with Ralphs point, that the distortion profile is probably a large, large factor in likeability.

In large part I think my own love/dislike for certain amps, and those fanboys on the opposite side of the room probably has to do with exactly what @atmasphere is talking about here.

Roger M RM-9 has 3 feedback settings so you can dial into what your ear brian likes in a 3D world....

And the ear brain is highly sensitive to time and phase... no debate there either... ha