Re: The Audiophoolery Thread.
It is an interesting discussion regarding speakers. Yes indeed they are pretty bad, particularly low frequency drivers with a large physical excursion, which can easily get to several percent when approaching xmax.
But in the early days of CD (remember Philips "perfect sound forever"?) they really did not sound good at all. A good friend described it as like having the back of your eyeballs scratched. And even then the distortion components, if you measured them, *should* have been below audibility. They weren't.
I suspect that it is down to the relative order of distortion. Loudspeaker distortions tend to be relatively low order, whereas solid state amplifier distortions can often have components that are higher order - 7th and 9th for example - which are not harmonically related to music and sound objectionable at surprisingly low levels.
Interestingly, the design of pianos specifically incorporates features to suppress high order harmonics because of the fact that they sound awful.
I suspect that is why valved amps - even ones that produce eye-watering distortion like single ended triode - can often be preferred. The distortion is usually just 2nd and 3rd order - so octave and perfect fifth (an octave up), both of which are in all major and minor scales.
Craig
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