I read McIntosh tube amps and klipschorns and my mind immediately went to can you hear me knocking And that song has been playing all night long.

Lookup the wiki on trigonometric identities and see what happens when 2 sine waves get multiplied together. What you get is called modulation products. For example, if you have 2 sine waves at different frequencies - say 95 kHz and 96 kHz - and you multiply them together, you get 2 totally different frequencies as the outcome. One will be the sum of the two input frequencies or 191 kHz - I’ll go out on a limb and posit that none of us mere mortals would be able to hear that. The other frequency would be the difference between the two input frequencies or 1 kHz - which at least most of us can hear.

So, OP, is it possible that whatever Jedi mind trick you are doing with 96 kHz is leading to a modulation product that lands within the audible range?

I wonder if anyone has ever tried hypnosis to heighten their experience when listening to a recording. A suggestion that “you will feel like you are actually there” could go a long way for those who can allow themselves to be hypnotized.

I saw NAD 3050 and “retro look” and got all excited thinking someone had an amp from the same eta as my NAD 3150 from the mid 80’s. The 3150 is the second amp I bought in my youth and has been a great amp. I’ve had to replace the output transistors once and the power supply seems to have a problem now (probably electrolytic caps) but the schematic is available online so it shouldn’t be too much trouble to repair. NAD has always been a favorite for me.