Accuracy vs. musicality

@audioman58 totally agree, after upgrading my source I was able to finally appreciate the sound coming out my 2 sets of speakers and amps, also I listened to tracks I have been listening for 40 years in an entirely different way. Source is key and makes as much of a difference in my opinion than most speakers. 

A musical system is balanced (through component matching) and sounds natural to our auditory senses. It’s not necessary accurate which requires true reproduction of music through each elements of the system chains (from source to speaker to room acoustics).

On the other hand, a musical system with more accurate (or faithful) reproduction should be the goal towards the Nirvana since the listener will hear from recording what’s closer to true music. 

In my own experience, my 1st priority is to find the new balance in each attempt to upgrade my system (e.g cable switch, realign speaker placement, etc after I replaced my digital source) so I can rediscover the musicality I enjoy before the change was made. Hopefully, the “new” system will also be more accurate to give more of the key elements (e.g more dynamics, less noise) after each exercise of tweaks of mix and match is done.

A truly accurate and musical system takes time, effort and dough to build. That’s what makes the journey memorable (think about how you started from day one).

First of all, the accuracy of a speaker changes dramatically from room to room, and within a given room, from placement/positioning to placement/positioning.  It changes with each component in a given system.  What matters is the accuracy of the entire system within that room that you listen in.  If you nail THAT, you will have great musicality.  

And there you have it in a nutshell.  No matter what the "reviews" say, or other people that have heard a system, ultimately we all hear things differently.  Some of it is biological -- hearing is not uniform among all people, some is environmental -- such as the synergy between components and the room, and some of it is just preference.  That is why it is so difficult to buy components, and especially speakers, without hearing them in your own system.  One person's "musical" system might be another person's "bloated" inaccurate one.  If I purchase another pair of speakers, I am going to go to NYC, where I can actually listen to the speakers that I am interested in rather than rely on comments and reviews!  That being said, my equipment is for listening to music, not to see how close to the source signal it is.  Musicality beats accuracy to my old(er) too-many-Led-Zeppelin-concerts ears!

One of the best posts/responses I’ve read on this forum!!  Great answers and examples - it’s a joy to read and appreciate thoughts of others without the usual argumentative posts.  I don’t believe accurate and musical are mutually exclusive, and both are influenced by so many things- equipment, source, room acoustics, and most importantly the ears. I’ll only spend money if I love the improvement in SQ I hear whether it’s accuracy musicality or hopefully both. Well done OP