Fidelity vs. Musicality...........Is there a tug of War?

As my system continues to  improve, compression on recordings my be the single thing that bothers me the most. 

@audition...............



As my system continues to improve, compression on recordings my be the single thing that bothers me the most.

Thats where I am going with this if you notice increased compression when fidelity increases.......the system is less musical.

There is some spectacular mid fi systems out there...

@mijostyn:

"The best systems make everything sound better, everything. When confronted with a system capable of the absolute sound everyone will think it sounds great. Everyone knows what "right" is when they hear it."

I'm curious: what percentage of audiophiles would you suspect are able to afford one of the "best systems"? 

@noske:

"@stuartk perhaps you speak of musicianship? I'm not even sure that's a word. I am inclined to mostly agree with you"

Musicianship is mastery of expressive means. That is half the equation.  The other half is having something valuable to express. 

There exist musicians who display dazzling technique yet who's playing communicates little-- there is an emptiness at the heart of it, 

Likewise, there are musicians with limited technique who manage to convey something profound.  

Define what is "musicality" and what is "fidelity."  

Be very specific and use objective terms, not subjective terms.  

Once that is finished and resolved, then we can discuss why some equipment fails to reproduce musical performances and other equipment comes very close to "you are there" reproduction.