It was more a case of hard clipping vs soft clipping. You could get tube ( valve ) amplifiers moving high tension volts way over spec at the cost of lots of thi

It was more a case of hard clipping vs soft clipping. You could get tube ( valve ) amplifiers moving high tension volts way over spec at the cost of lots of third harmonic ( mostly ) distortion by providing things like DC amplifiers. Semiconductor amplifiers would simply turn into a digital switch with enough current. Fast enough current and they're more or less flip flops. Normalising within 16 bits has led to loudness wars. That's the medium. Analogue chains all overflow towards a chaotic end. Some people prefer that chain of events.