Musicality" in a system? What IS that ?

You are right, many prformances lack the true spirit of the music. Put plainly, a performance can be just the notes ... not the music. This is something I tell my private students all the time. "Sure you can play the notes ... but where is the music?" It is easy to get discouraged listening to concerts at a local level. Every great musician started somewhere ... and you're bound to meet a few along the way.

When you feel emotionaly connected to the music or the performer. The soul that is the essence, that which makes us smile, laugh or weep......musicality can lift the human spirit. It is a state of bliss. Musicality, for me, begins here. How we approach it may be different but the presentation makes you forget about the equipment and just drown in the magic of the music...Mucicality makes you feel good. If can may you feel small and thankful and humble all at the same time......cheers, Bluenose

Put your favourite record on, if you tap yer toes and sing along, you've got it right! simple guy, simple needs

Hi Detlof, very interesting thread. As a professional musician for three decades now (started young) I naturally have an imprint of a "live feel" in my bones, and that is always my first reference. My take on "musicality" is that certain systems reproduce sound in such a way that I am emotionally touched by good music consistently. Granted, great content on the lousiest system can sometimes touch your heart and imagination, but the key word is consistently. I have heard some systems that feel so "live" that even when hearing something for the first time I can anticipate the musicians next moves as if I was playing with them. I've heard systems that let a vocalists expression come through so clearly as to bring tears to my eyes. Criteria for accurately describing musicality is difficult at best, but I have noticed that it tends to happen on systems that are not inexpensive (shall I say usually over $5000, but more like $15,000 and up?) There are also degrees of musicality, case in point: this week I tested 4 optical cables for the output of my Denon minidisc player. Since it doesn't have a coaxial out, I was trying to make the best of the format. I use it for archives, much as intended, as a replacement for cassette tapes. One of the interconnects had what I can describe as musicality. Others were more detailed, or "faster'" with a bit more perceived output (midrange emphasis?) but this one interconnect (Audio One) was balanced at all frequencies and helped to diminish the shrill aspects of the minidisc format, allowing the the soul of the music to come through, even if not as strongly as with higher resolution formats. Also, I have listened to SACD's on many occasions now, and one time my body was actually fooled into thinking that I was hearing a real performance. Now, don't get me wrong I've heard vinyl setups that overall sound better than the best SACD playback, but this was the only time I have ever truly been fooled, be it only for a few seconds. It was a rather spooky experience. I would have to own a SACD player for a while to see if it does something close to that consistently over long time periods, but talk about musicality, Whoa! We have only words to convey the feelings we experience from a "musical" reproduction, but soul, spirit and emotion,are certainly some of them.Bravo!

All the previous postings here talk about getting the spirit of the music, being emotionally connected to the performers, etc.....while I think that all this is true, it really all boils down to personal interpretation...Joe Blow A might think the system A is musical, but Joe Blow B might think that system B is musical...how does one, then, differentiate the two systems?..One listener might consider an accurate, crystal clean, ultra neutral-sounding system (ie: Krells, Thresholds to name a few)as being musical. Another listener might consider a warm, sugar-coated, slightly-colored, euphonic-sounding system as being musical (ie: Conrad Johnsons, ARC's to name a few - funny, both these are tube gear). This trully is a tough question to quantify since we're talking about the emotional experience one goes through when listening to audio playback..Having said this however, there seems to be a consensus out there on "musical-sounding" equipment: a lot of the well-designed tube gear are almost always described as "musical". It took me a long time to finally pin down what they really mean by this and having been exposed to numerous system combinations over the last 15 years, "musical" FOR ME only means one thing: EUPHONICS. And a lot of it has to do with how well a midrange is presented on the musical spectrum...considering of course, that everything on the music is well-reproduced, it is the midrange that cuts it for me...then again, I listen almost exclusively to acoustic Jazz...