Personally, I'd prefer to listen to music, not to any added distortion at
audible levels - irrespective of its order for THD. :-)


Just a thought
-
I have always found that power supplies in "high" (more than 50 watt)
powered amps. are able to drive the amp to just over the quoted output (for
a given distortion level) then run out of steam. All the "low" power amps
(8 and 15 watts / channel) I have owned have had comparitively massive power
reserves from the PSU which means that they will drive way above their rated
output (when abused) but with rapidly increasing ammounts of distortion (and
heat). Low power amp meeting a transient peak may, or may not, suffer the
same degree of TID but will almost certainly show far fewer power ripple
effect following the peak and will maintain composure.
One of the reasons I have always liked the sound of old Sugden amps is, I
suspect, due to the massive over-spec'ing of power supplies in P50s, A48s
etc. (although they had poor channel tracking at low levels which made for
frustration when trying to listen (very) quietly)
TID, THD - which is more obvious in the real world?

I find ALL solid state amps to have a degree of "grain" in the sound -
Possibly tube amps just bury the grain in the output t/former? (havn't
really listened to t/formerless valve amps) My MF headphone amp claims to
be valve based but I have no idea what sort of circuit is used - it
certainly sounds v. smooth fed by its 600mA "wall wart" so possibly there
goes another theory!!!!