All I know is that I try to avoid digital distortion at all costs, mainly just because it sounds _extremely_ nasty. I can believe that it could do nasty things to spkrs, but it's never happened to me (coz I avoid it!)
Anybody heard the latest Queensryche CD . . . Q2K ? The third cut called "One Life" has this wall-of-sound distorted rhythm guitar that, to me , sounds like a controlled digital distortion. Either that or some type of digital distortion effect going on. Anyway, it sounds cool to me and unlike any distortion you can get from a tube amp.
Queensryche: Q2K
Q2K is a smoking CD. I caught them live at the Ariel Theater in Houston in December, and the show was great. Probably their best release since Empire--They always had a unique way of coming out with a fresh new sound on every CD and this has a very fresh sound for them once again. They seemed to have lost that on "Hear in the Now Frontier". Catch them live if you can. I also thought that distortion sound was cool!!!
Although Queensryche's "Hear in the Now Frontier" was a bit different, I liked it. I thought it should other sides of the band's musical talent. Other than the change of sound on that album, I thought most of the songs on the album were unique unto themselves in that each song has a different feel. On some of their albums the songs were too much alike each other... very little variety. Q2K is a great CD, but IMHO I think they could do better.