I'm fine with disagreeing with Pass, as he often points out he's "in the entertainment industry". I don't use gear to be entertained by it or its designer, I use gear to be entertained by the *music*.
Pass deceptively doesn't show how his testing would have looked at 20dB or more of negative feedback, as the higher order distortion products would have been reduced. Hood's graph that he borrows clearly shows this. Pass goes on to reveal that his approach is just a preference, with no real argument to explain why.
None of this is meant to disparage any of Pass's designs. But there's a lot of hype going on.
The thing I've always found most fascinating about that article was his comment that, anecdotally, he has found that one third of people prefer some 2nd harmonic THD, a third prefer 3rd, and the last third prefer none at all.
It's actually a clever idea, albeit tricky to pull off. It avoids the issue of thermal dynamic distortion from chasing the optimal bias point, which can indeed be an "elephant in the room" with poor sound from typical Class AB biasing schemes. Obviously I can't speak to your personal experience and impressions, though.
