[TowerTalk] Vacuum tube 100 years old today

[Jim Brown]

On Tue, 16 Nov 2004 16:13:53 -0600, Chuck Lewis wrote:

>Does that mean we should listen to Bach through tube amps and Schoenberg
>through solid state? (grin). And what about Miles (Davis)?

With a good Scotch or a rich Belgian ale.  And for Miles (or Getz), with a 
consenting adult. :) 

But seriously -- the distortion is often added at the recording/production stage 
for artistic effect.  One should generally try to listen to a recording through the 
lowest distortion gear available.  But the ear is hundreds of times more 
sensitive to higher order harmonics than to low order ones, so what is low 
distortion and what is high distortion is a pretty complex set of variables. 

Jim