Speakers that are very accurate sounding but don't produce an emotional connection.

shadorne wrote:   "Very accurate" is going to convey the music as intended and deliver the full emotional impact.

Please understand your statement is an opinion. Some agree with you and others do not as is evident in this thread. Consider this if you will ....

You've heard the same excellent live recording for years on your extremely accurate system. You've listened to the same recording on other extremely accurate systems and you're moved every time by the realism and that feeling of being there during the recording. You know, with some accuracy, how it was intended to sound when recorded. Then one day you hear that same recording on another system, and on that system you're surprised at how clearly you can hear a cello. That same cello wasn't quite that "palpable" before on the other systems, and you've always relegated it somewhat into the background, but now on this system it's louder and more tonally "rich".

You know it's not accurate, but you love cellos and this one sounds wonderful now that it's front and center. 

Maybe this has never happened to you, and maybe you feel it never could happen to you. It's happened to me often enough that it's the reason I'm responding to the OP's post as well as the comments here.

I'll also add that "accurate" is not necessarily conveying the music as intended, but rather the RECORDING as produced.  Not always the same thing, as a number of posters have touched on.  There are a lot of old recordings (in classical, early DG and some Columbias come to mind) with great performances but questionable sonics which can sound very moving on a low-to-mid fi system but will make your ears bleed on a system with flat frequency response.

Sunnyjim

Considering the various aspects of achieving good and accurate sound by component synergy, is there a way to explain this so-called magical element that often eludes so many of us??

The Real World ?

http://cdn.head-fi.org/6/67/6754547a_Rodrigues-anechoicdealer.jpeg

For those of you replacing equipment or spending your $ chasing more "palpable" sounds of particular instruments on particular recordings - you won't ever stand a chance of achieving overall improvement on each and every recording. The only way to achieve greater performance overall  is through equipment that is as accurate and transparent as possible. Equipment that works on each and every track and presents them as faithfully as possible.

For sure a colourful speaker can make some recordings more enjoyable (to your taste) or lend themselves to a particular genre - if your tastes in music are extremely narrow then this approach may work for you.

As for what was "intended" and trying to second guess that - well this just confuses the issue of high fidelity further instead of accepting the recording is what it is (imperfect and all that)!

Shadorne- Assuming you refer to only excellent recordings, I agree that greater performance overall will come via accurate equipment setup correctly in an adequate room. That's been my experience anyhow, and yet I can't ignore that sometimes a louder and more forward instrument can be quite captivating and therefore more emotionally moving. 

It's possible that one can have extremely broad musical tastes, but still prefer some recordings over others not because of how faithfully they're reproduced but because they want to get that emotionally moving fix over and over again. Hey, I like me a mean sax which can be heard in countless genres of music. If I was a sax addict, I would probably be more likely to go in the direction of what pleases me most: more sax!

Thank god I don't have that problem!