Musical = hear music....vs....analytical = hear system and "sound" of recording.
Here is a continuum:
clock radio (hear music only)....................studio monitors (hear system only)
**Musical - the forest not the trees**
You hear the musician's emotions, feelings and expressiveness in what they are playing.
**Analytical - the trees not the forest**
you hear the musician's technique and the quality of the recording. You hear the finest details such as door squeaks, people farting, and singers swallowing their saliva. IMO analytical will always lead to unhappiness as you hear too much. All the faults in the system are exposed since you are listening to the system not the music and no system is perfect. Also results in not listening to a lot of music because of bad sound quality.
IMHO there is some kind of relationship between money spent and systems becoming more analytical. As if, for spending a lot of money you better gets lots of detail to get your money's worth. A corollary would be boomy bass when people buy a subwoofer. They want to hear what their money just bought them.
Musical does not have to mean distorted or euphonic as in poor measuring SET's. You can have "musical" with flat F-R speakers and low distortion electronics the key is that they aren't too revealing. Finding the balance between revealing too much and too little is the trick.
Here is a continuum:
clock radio (hear music only)....................studio monitors (hear system only)
**Musical - the forest not the trees**
You hear the musician's emotions, feelings and expressiveness in what they are playing.
**Analytical - the trees not the forest**
you hear the musician's technique and the quality of the recording. You hear the finest details such as door squeaks, people farting, and singers swallowing their saliva. IMO analytical will always lead to unhappiness as you hear too much. All the faults in the system are exposed since you are listening to the system not the music and no system is perfect. Also results in not listening to a lot of music because of bad sound quality.
IMHO there is some kind of relationship between money spent and systems becoming more analytical. As if, for spending a lot of money you better gets lots of detail to get your money's worth. A corollary would be boomy bass when people buy a subwoofer. They want to hear what their money just bought them.
Musical does not have to mean distorted or euphonic as in poor measuring SET's. You can have "musical" with flat F-R speakers and low distortion electronics the key is that they aren't too revealing. Finding the balance between revealing too much and too little is the trick.