No, I think reasonably low overall distortion must be a prerequisite to true HiFi, if we're going to use the term "HiFi" and not "audiophile". At some point, even euphonic distortion is going to obviously color and reduce the sound quality...probably before the 1-2% THD level is reached. Then, THD is a very crude/basic metric because it says nothing as to the nature of the distortion. Bad distortion sounds bad...even in very small amounts.
The tricky thing is, at what point do you consider the removal of that last little bit of euphonic distortion to be "worse than the cure", and thus justifiable towards the pursuit of HiFi? It gets to be nebulous topic real quick. What if that little bit of distortion ends up masking flaws, shortcomings, & unnatural artifacts from the recording side of the chain? At that point, which is more true to the music, as interpreted by our senses?
In the latter segment of my experience, I've been more drawn to stuff with low overall distortion for its class but NOT the lowest THD numbers - i.e. well engineered, modern all-tube electronics and a vinyl source w/ LOMC cartridge. True, that cartridge/grovve interface is probably responsible for quite a bit of the distortion in such a system. Though I do believe the amps should have lower distortion numbers than transducers, or you need to double-check how it's been engineered.
Got to admit I've loved some fairly high-distortion gear - it can be wonderfully enjoyable (vintage tube amps come to mind), and it certainly has a place in audiophile pursuits. However, such gear is not going to reach the highest echelons of HiFi sonic reproduction.
Edited by mulveling - 2/20/12 at 9:15pm
