Either tubes or solid state can be made to sound softer, more polite, warmer, etc. that frequently comes with a masking or blurring of detail usually most notable, but not exclusively, in the treble region where you’ll hear muted dynamics, air, reverb trails, etc. I could see equipment that is voiced this way masking certain types of distortion and may be why you might be hearing minimal differences. Conversely, equipment that is designed to be hyper detailed can accentuate distortion, so as with most everything in audio the key is finding the balance that sounds best to you with the music you listen to. Hard to say given your description and lack of other pertinent info what you should be hearing, but if you share what equipment/cables are in your system and what CD you’re using you’ll likely get much better and more useful insights here. Good question though.
audible distortion and tube gear?
I know that I have read on this site about "tube sound" having something to do with the way tube gear handles distortion, but would tube gear make it harder to recognize distortion?
The reason I ask is because I have a test CD that has several consecutive tracks of a test tone with no distortion and then on each track distortion is increased by a certain percentage. I am not sure I am hearing what it says I am supposed to be hearing as the distortion increases.