If Warmth Is a Distortion, Why Do So Many Audiophiles Still Defend It?

I have been a patron of live, unamplified music for around thirty years. The various halls have their different accoustics. I listen to the L.A. Philharmonic at Disney Hall, which was accoustically designed by sound engineers and the conductor at the time, Essa Pekka Salonen. The sound still bounces around, though. It does when I listen to live jazz or rock too.

At Disney Hall I'm about 100 feet from the orchestra. I sit about 9 feet from my stereo. "Analytic" gear that has a precise soundstage with all the instruments separated by black spaces just doesn't sound real. Some distortion is required to make it sound like live music. The L.A. Phil sounds like a wave of music when it gets going. Even when one musician is playing in the orchestra, I have to look around for that musician. A French horn can sound like any other brass horn, or even woodwinds sometimes. And the sound bounces around the auditorium so it's not precisely placed.

That's what real music sounds like, and I want it to sound as close as possible to real music in my listening room.

Bob Dylan writes songs and leaves the lyrical interpretation to the listener.  How we interpret an artists work is part of the process.  

“Audiophiles don’t use their systems to listen to your music, they use your music to listen to their systems.”

@audio-b-dog 

+1 "...Some distortion is required to make it sound like live music."... 

I would think less emphasis on details over the rest of the spectrum will for fully integrate the sound to so make it sound more real... as opposed to distortion. 

@ghdprentice 

I agree with you to some extent. I have just gotten rid of my last tube piece of gear, an ARC PH-7 which I loved for many years, partly because lt was "clearer" than my ARC PH-3. I replaced my ARC Ref. 3 preamp this year, also. It's sound was pretty tight. ARC is trying to tighten their sound, in the sense that musical notes have less bloom.

So, now I have Pass Labs gear in their place. Pass Labs, however, still has a "softer" sound than other solid state gear. My setup sounds pretty close to the ARC sound I got rid of.

Here is an example of what I am talking about. I owned a McCormack DNA-1 with many upgrades for many years. I ran various speakers with that amp. Years ago, a friend of mine went on vacation and loaned me his Krell amp to try out. It was a little more expensive than the McCormack, but not much. The bass slam on the Krell was obviously much better. But the mids and especially highs sounded hard to me and unenjoyable. I couldn't get that Krell out of my system fast enough.

This dichotome between "musical" and "analytical" equipment still exists today. I have always leaned toward "musical" speakers with a softer sound. I now own Sonus Faber speakers which are known for their "musicality." 

I think I'll just leave it at that, because reviewers constantly use those two terms, "musicality" and "analytical" sound, and I don't think that there's any dispute that they exist in current equipment.

@atmasphere 

Can you explain how you do this:

"You don’t need double the circuitry for a balanced line setup. Our preamps have been fully balanced and differential since their inception in 1989." ?

Thanks!