5% THD to .000 THD SOUND

Ahendler,
One  thing I've consistently noticed with the vernacular of High End Audio is exceptional tube equipment is often described as natural.  Exceptional solid state equipment is often described as accurate. If two different camps exist , that would put me in the former. 
Charles, 

Geoff,
Good point,  i admittedly don't know the actual THD  of the Kagura ampllifier, conventional wisdom would predict an overtly colored sound.  What I heard was the antithesis of that assumption. 
Charles, 

This is an interesting topic personally as I’ve had the opportunity to hear the Kondo Kagura at CES a couple of years ago. It was in the context of an all Kondo system to best of my knowledge. Verdict, superb natural sound is what I experienced. Pure,clean and transparent with full body tonality and harmonics.

Derrickengineer where did you see/verify the THD specification of 5%? That seems high and I wonder how that was measured. I believe that the Kagura has a switch to adjust NFB levels (output impedance ). I recognize that 2nd order distortion is congruent with nature and is readily tolerated by human hearing (unlike upper order odd distortion ) , Ralph (Atmasphere ) has clearly and thoroughly covered this subject very well on several occasions.

I’m skeptical about the 5% THD stated by the OP based on what I heard. There wasn’t a hint of an euphonic, colored , overly warm character at all. Stings,brass,woodwinds and piano were exceptionally realistic in presentation. Shortly after this listening session I visited the Pass Labs room,. This consisted of the XS 300 amplifiers driving the Marten Coltrane (Supremes I believe ). Without question the XS amplifiers will spec at much lower THD than the Kagura.

IMO the Pass and Marten combo was quite good but this system lacked the tactile flesh and blood realism compared to the Kondo suite. I was more aware of the fact of listening to a fine collection of electronic audio components. In contrast the Kondo seem to put me in the presence of live musicians. The two systems were very distinctly different. However the THD is determined there is certainly more to this story that is unexplained with numbers /measurements. Bottom line, the Kondo system was more emotionally engaging and convincing in that it simply pulled me deeper into the music.

My gut feeling is that although the Kagura has higher THD than the esteemed Pass XS 300 I suspect that the number is very likely less than 5% as reported by the OP. This is just my opinion after listening to these two ultra expensive systems virtually back to back. Inna is right, you just have to actually listen to components and decide based on what you hear. That’s why YMMV will always ring true. That Einstein quote posted by Eric is so on the mark.  Audio components are built based on science and engineering principles  no doubt whatsoever,  yet there is a genuine component of "art" at play as well. We can clearly hear things that can't be fully explained at this juncture. 
Charles,

Hi Al,
I can not disagree with your well presented and rational reply. To be perfectly clear I do in fact believe that specifications and measurements have relevance and are useful. Particularly for screening purposes and initial "short list " selection. You have to begin somewhere and as you note you cannot audition every component that may interest you.

Really my prime contention is these parameters simply aren’t reliable in determining the sound quality of an audio product. Specifications can identify and likely eliminate gross incapatible matches, no question.
However if an opportunity exists to hear the product of interest then this is by far the best way to proceed.

The 5 % THD of the Kagura would rule it out for perhaps many yet the reality of listening to it reveals stunning performance. Given what I heard makes me curious to see a verified THD measurement. If it is truly 5% then it would lead me to question the importance of THD in the overall scheme scheme of things.

There is a thread on this site about amplifier choices for the Wilson Sasha. The OP was considering Pass Labs and Cary 211 tubed amplifier. There were numerous well reasoned arguments to choose the Pass rather than the Cary. The OP ultimately bought the Cary and is ecstatic with it driving his Wilsons. In fact he describes it as "fantastic and magical ".

This type of result isn’t predictable via relying on specs alone thus my science plus art comment above. What ahendler posted has been confirmed by more than a few experienced listeners.
Specifications are of value but other variables are undeniably at play.
Charles,

Revealing the nuances and different character of individual recordings is exactly what the Kondo Kagura excelled at doing so impressively.  No "special sauce" required.  This along with its clarity, openess and naturalness is what made it stand out relative to the Pass-Marten pairing.  This combo did a very good job of sorting out recording differences also The Kondo room/system  just did it better based on my listening encounter. 
Charles, 

Hello bwaslo,
Your explanation makes a very compelling and logical case for the seemingly overstated importance /relevance of the THD specification. It certainly is consistent with the not infrequent observation of relatively poor measuring components that sound exceptionally well. Stereophile reviews are a good example. A reviewer says a component sounds terrific, yet subsequent test bench results are average or even poor. Conversely there are examples of excellent measuring components that sound bad. Again, this is why Einstein’s quote regarding what can and can’t be measured is timeless in its profundity.

It is fair to say however that some specifications and measurements are more relevant than others. On the other hand THD may be less meaningful and predictive than is generally belived. Good post bwaslo! An isolated measurement under test conditions may have little correlation with actual music signal performance quality .
Charles,

I’ll give proper credit to Mr.William Bruce  Cameron. Different messenger, same impactful message.
Charles,

That makes the point as well.

Al,
I'm not surprised that you recognized the significant and excellent points contributed by bwalso. I must say that I agree with your further comments.  These SET amplifiers if used in their sweet spot of operation have exceptionally low distortion.  I heard the Kagura driving efficient speakers at moderate or typical volume levels (definitely not lowered volumes). Most likely well within the amplifier's very  low distortion range.  This would to a large extent explain the wonderfully clear and natural presentation I described. bwaslo got it right with his post. 
Charles, 

Ralph,
I’d say that your description of the sound of amplifiers correlates very well to my own listening experiences over the years. I’d also be interested in your reply to Onhwy61's inquiry. I’ve heard the Putney amplifiers twice (under show conditions) and was underwhelmed. It could be due to the show environment but there were other rooms at the show that had wonderful sound so who knows,
Charles,