Please help me understand

"quite possible that the human ear might be on some level analyzing things that are either yet to be identified and labeled"

Transient Intermodulation, unknown until 70s, comes to mind. Early SS amps sounded very bright because of overuse of negative feedback but designers claimed that it has to sound better than tube gear since THD and IMD are way lower. TIM is very seldom tested since there is no established test method. Even the simpliest specifications like THD don't show the full picture since it is different at different frequencies and power levels.

As for being able to repeat particular amp, I'm afraid that no matter what you do SS won't sound like tube gear simply because of completely different interaction with the speaker. SS amps are voltage sources while tube amps are power sources. You can attempt to emulate sound of particular amp/speaker combination in DSP processing (many guitar amps do it) but results are rather poor. Nobody, so far, was able to make electric piano sound like real one - not even close. We are pretty much on the level of trying to understand why wires have particular sound (silver vs. copper etc.). Even same tubes made by different manufacturers sound different. It is still mix of science and art.

Unsound, you have spoiled everything by introducing reasoned, well thought out common sense.

Maybe the machines can 'hear' all there is to hear. They hear everything the human sense of hearing detects. maybe the key is, how the brain interpets and processes those sounds. Machine can't do that. And that could be different for different people. Thats how some people can listen to Mozart and 'hear' noise and then get all weepy eyed ove tom waits. Your post was very informative.
Peace.

I going with: unless and until you hear it for yourself, you'll just have to
take it or leave it on faith. If and when you hear it -- as we appear to have
demonstrated -- I'm afraid that it doesn't get one bit easier to explain....
(And people claim this "hobby" doesn't strike as a religion.
Jeesh.)

But I definitely will agree that the divide between registering data
transmitted by sound waves -- which a machine can presumably be
created to do equally well, if not significantly better, than the human ear --
and perceiving sound in the human brain (and extrapolating from it
meaning, or emotion, or anything else) is significant and not all that well
understood. There simply a lot we can't yet explain out there in the
world....