@emergingsoul “Shouldn’t it go without saying that speakers should be musical.”
You would think, but very often this has been pushed way down the list of attributes. It is not that anyone goes off looking for non-musical speakers (or to create them), and seldom are speakers completely devoid of musicality. But, as myself as an example. When I started looking for my first system I tried to quantity what I wanted. Well what could I hear / know about? Detail and better bass. Then over time I observed tonal balance, imaging, transients, micro textures… etc. Many speakers concentrate on sonic feats… displaying incredible detail and explosive instant bass… often musicality takes a back seat. Today’s high end speakers are capable of sonically spectacular sound… often missing the mark on the gestalt of the experience.
I always took a couple of my favorite CDs with me to audition speakers. I remember going through an ethereal electronic phase and optimizing that sound… finding I had lost much of the warmth and music in the midrange. Most genera suffered as my electronic sounded better. I realized I was doing something wrong.
Most speakers (and components) today have strengths in sound quality… like B&W is great with rock music… lots of details bringing out the cymbals and other details and a huge bass kick. They go well with Mac which tends to be strong on the midrange and adding to the kick of the speakers. But start listening to all kinds of music and they are not the most natural or musical.
Sonus Faber, that is first and foremost, music and natural sound. So, a cello, cymbals, bell, or saxophone sounds sounds real. Like the material of which it is made and the rhythm and pace of the music flows naturally. Sonus Faber when coupled with the right electronics just lures you into the music and is completely involving, unlike many speakers that throw up this big sound field that shouts at you and often makes solo instruments out of instruments played in the background. After hours of listening, I still have difficulty dragging myself away from them.
