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What is Musicality?

Hello fellow music lovers,

I am upgrading my system like a lot of us who follow Audiogon. I read a lot about musicality on Audiogon as though the search for musicality can ultimately end by acquiring the perfect music system -- or the best system that one can afford. I really appreciate the sonic improvements that new components, cables, plugs and tweaks are bringing to my own system. But ultimately a lot of musicality comes from within and not from without. I probably appreciated my Rocket Radio and my first transistor radio in the 1950s as much I do my high-end system in 2010. Appreciating good music is not only a matter of how good your equipment is. It is a measure of how musical a person you are. Most people appreciate good music but some people are born more musical than others and appreciate singing in the shower as much as they do listening to a high-end system or playing a musical instrument or attending a concert. Music begins in the soul. It is not only a function of how good a system you have.

Sabai
sabai
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 
Tubegroover,
Good points, I use live jazz venues as my template. The closer the components approach that sound the more I like them. It`s become very simple for me now to choose or reject equitment.
frogman
7,436 posts
 
Thanks, Charles1dad and Tubegroover. On a related note, Tubegroover, Bill Evan's "Walts For Debby" (all of the Village Vanguard sessions, actually) does a great job of capturing the sound of the recording venue. If you ever have the opportunity to visit the Village Vanguard in NYC, you will hear what a remarkable job that recording does of capturing the sound of that space; the low ceiling, well dampened sound. Not a particularly attractive acoustic, but unique, and easily identified; for all those that say a recording's sound cannot be used as a reliable reference.
tubegroover
2,320 posts
 
I haven't been to the Vanguard but do have both vinyl and cd of Waltz for Debby and most of Evan's recordings for that matter. I can CERTAINLY hear that low ceiling, very typical of a lot of jazz venues I've been to, one place quite close to us in Florida that has since closed Dino's for anyone that has been to that place in Cocoa Beach, FL. Had some really good local jazz here in the day along with Wolfies, oh well probably no one on this site is familiar with these obscure places but that Village Vanguard recording does remind me of the acoustic space of Dinos.
dsper
663 posts
 
Put your favorite record on the player.

Set the volume.

Sit in your favorite chair

Close your eyes

Does it honestly sound live - that is musicality for better or worse.
orpheus10
8,668 posts
 
Musicality is neutrality in the extreme in regard to high end audio set up to perfection, it's when that record or CD that you've heard a thousand times, sounds brand new.
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