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For me the routine "cringeworthy" comment about amplifiers I read has to do with tube amps. Please have a look at John Atkinson's frequency response measurements when the load (normally a non-inductive resistance) is replaced by a simulated loudspeaker load, which varies with frequency. It is common to see 1 to 2 dB variations in frequency response - and sometimes alarmingly more!. This is caused by the voltage-divider created by the internal impedance of the tube amp and the frequency dependent impedance of the loudspeaker. A few notable (and of course highly rated) tube amps have exhibited output impedances in multiple whole ohms. Incredible. These are audible differences - the loudspeaker has been "redesigned" by the power amp. This is not a good idea. Yet uninformed reviewers regularly attribute differences to the amplifier itself - or to the loudspeaker itself if that is the test object. Both are wrong: it is an interaction effect and this is why solid-state amplifiers are so much more appealing - through them you get to hear the loudspeakers as designed.Why go to extremes? That argument is regularly brought up but there are plenty of good sounding and measuring amplifiers between Mark Levinson (which is actually nowhere near the highest-priced gear these days) and a HTIB solution. I do not think anyone has ever said a $10 1 W amp is going to sound the same as a 1000 W monoblock, though at 0.1 W the little 1 W amp might actually sound better (less noise). And virtually nobody with knowledge of amplifier design and testing is saying "all" amplifiers sound the same driving any load under any conditions AFAIK.
Everybody exaggerates.
BTW, damping, per se, is a non-issue - it is dominated by the voice coil resistance.
EDIT: All of this is described in Chapter 16 of the 3rd edition.
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