Quote Originally Posted by Mr Peabody View Post
I may be thinking of the wrong use of "mask" but tubes don't necessarily mask anything. I've heard tube gear that can be as revealing as solid state. Certain tube gear can change the presentation or maybe even the sonic balance but if it's quality tube gear nothing should be masked.
To clarify what I mean by "mask", I don't mean to imply that the tubes veil the sound in perceptible way. Rather my hypothesis is, specifically, that the relatively high 2nd and/or 3rd order harmonic distortion produced by tubes, which is inoffensive, masks the irritating higher order harmonic distortion that is typical of solid state because of the use of negative feedback in s/s devices.