> You've never listened to audiophile equipment have you?
You're saying that I ought to judge the merits of audiophile equipment by the subjective measure of whether I like the sound of it. Which is the metric I said audiophiles would favour.
> If apply "some soft clipping" it will sound bad
Soft clipping often sounds nice, which is why it's very commonly applied to music. You're saying that eg. the sound of a classic Vox amp is bad, which I guess you're free to believe if that's what your ears tell you, but it's certainly not an objective truth.
