I am sure that there are some recordings where, on occasions, some people would like to apply some distortion as a novelty perhaps, or because they have grown up listening to distorted systems and can't imagine anything better. Maybe they just hate the whole early music scene, or whatever, and prefer psychedelic rock; a bit of distortion gets them closer to it. In other words no, the answer to your question is probably not written down anywhere - but it isn't a useful question. As we have discussed, art can be anything you want it to be, and the act of playing a recording can be your own form of art: feed it through a fuzz box and knock yourself out.So can anyone tell me where I can find the actual published research that lead to the conclusions that....
1. A distortion free audio playback chain is subjectively superior regardless of recording
Like a tree falling in a forest with no one to hear it, "high fidelity" exists outside of whether, most of the time, random people prefer the sound of it or not. It is there when the mood takes us - and if we have the necessary excellent system. Much of the time we are not even going to be listening to music at realistic (high) volume and therefore are arbitrarily choosing not to experience high fidelity. But when the occasion demands it we can experience it - but only if the system is neutral.