Accurate vs Musical

All speakers lose their ability to be accurate once placed in a listening room. Early reflections, modal nodes, etc., all play a part in reducing the realism to a certain degree even if the speaker is 100 percent true to source.

Also, IMO, a more accurate speaker has the potential for being less musical since the accuracy highlights any flaws in the system, and in some instances make them unbearable - especially with digital sources. This is one reason some people tend to think not so highly of Thiels.

So if you're making a buying decision, the equipment connected upstream will be more of a factor in accuracy - at least the accuracy you are looking for - than the speakers' resolving ability.

The ideal would be a system that recreates, at the listener's ear, the exact waveforms of the performance that the artists originally performed or intended (specifying "intended" to take into account multitrack and synthesized recordings that never had an "original performance"). Frankly, that's way beyond our technology today.

The next best thing is to receate the PERCEPTION that the artists intended. This is more reasonably approachable, but requires study and research into "what matters" and "what doesn't". Much of what gets touted as demonstrating "accuracy" really doesn't matter very much, and much of what's ingnored does.

If we are measuring the things that matter, "accurate" and "musical" are the same.

Duke

"BTW “accurate” is “musical” when the recording is!" - pbb

Well said

I see it a bit (little) different.
Musical speaker is the one that tries to "emulate" or "simulate" the real live unamplified music.

Our hobby is a "game" of simulation of the objectivism deep down in our mind regarding our perspective of music.

Accurate speaker is the one that reproduces the recording sound found on cds or vinyls (or whatever media) including: the mastering skills of the studio engineer and/or producer, the recording equipment capabilities, different recording techniques (direct cut...), all the weakest links characterestics, like cables, power conditioning, power stabilization, microphones capabilities or types (tube ones for example), the mood of the group playing, the mood of the recording engineers and stuff, the maybe different geographical parts of the recording (voices in one studio in N.Y, instruments in other one in L.A), the succesfull or not mixing,the humidity in the studio, the different vibrations resonances or distortion, the money spend on a production, the musicians skills, the "spirit" of the recording or the boring routine process feeling, the material and/or quality of the cd/vinyl (180gr, 200gr, speed, gold, aluminum, blacks..) the serial number of pressing (the first cutted media sounds different than the last ones) .......................etc etc etc etc etc..

If I had to pick I'd choose the best possible musical speaker that gives me the choice to enjoy music and see it as a forest not as a sum of trees.
As the Ancient Greeks tought us I'd look better for the Golden mean between the 2 "versions" (accurate / musical), if there's such speaker.

But in the end of the line a musical speaker is also accurate and not the opposite. No I prefer to bypass the harsh voice's siblings of a bad recording of a bad engineer because he was boring doing his job, let the music prevail.

(Just some objective thoughts on the beloved hobby called "High-end or High-fi" IMHO).

Of course if I had to run a studio I'd picked an accurate monitor speaker to monitor the recording. In my hobby I don't have to monitor anything, JUST LISTEN !

* I forgot for the accurate speakers* the microphones placement and the numerous approaches in that matter.