I am not talking about harmonics which a tube amp creates but the natural harmonics and musical instrument posseses but I agree that some artificial harmonics can be eurphoric. Harmonics are in the end what actually what gives each instrument such as a violin it character. ps. Not all music is rock music
and not all recordings are so highly processed.
While measurements are important there comes a time when it actually becomes pointless. Yes our ears can deceive us for sure and I agree with that. Equally so it is impossible to hear the difference between 0,0001 distortion and 0,01 distortion even though that would be a factor or 10x more. You can also apply the same logic to SNR. If you could tell the difference between 100dB and 110DdB then be my guest
ps.. on a side note what boring world it would be if everything had a flat frequency response. If these cases, with vanishing distortion levels, I can just go out and buy acme brand DAC, Headphone or Amplifier with complete confidence that it will sound just like everything else. Namely boring