Some great points here. I used to think that a distortion-free speaker would theoretically let the listener hear precisely what the mastering engineer heard on his studio monitors. But, clearly there are playback systems that will make that recording sound far better and more lifelike than anything the mastering engineer heard when he created the recording. Should we call this ‘good’ distortion? Of course not.
On the other hand many of us have heard speaker systems that blow us away on first listen, but we do not own these speakers, because we suspect that they would produce fatigue with extended listening. Perhaps this is something that we could label ‘bad’ distortion, or ‘mixed bag’ distortion...not!
Hence my conclusion that the idea of distortion as applied to loudspeakers is simplistic and naive.
On the other hand many of us have heard speaker systems that blow us away on first listen, but we do not own these speakers, because we suspect that they would produce fatigue with extended listening. Perhaps this is something that we could label ‘bad’ distortion, or ‘mixed bag’ distortion...not!
Hence my conclusion that the idea of distortion as applied to loudspeakers is simplistic and naive.