Musicality" in a system? What IS that ?

Good question, Detlof, one that I've thought about repeatedly, since so many reviewers use the term. But I agree with Gemini that, if we try to get more specific than saying "musicality" relates to how well a system can reproduce sounds in an emotionally convincing way, it quickly starts to mean different things to different people.

When used by reviewers, "musicality" seems to me to be a cop-out. In fact, when I read something like "Brand B was more musical," I mentally substitute "just sounded better to me." The latter plain-English phrase conveys as much (or as little!) information and doesn't tempt me to engage in a risky mind-reading attempt to figure out specifically what the reviewer heard and liked. I certainly don't think it's easy or always desirable to reduce musical satisfaction to a bunch of discrete components of hearing. But I kind of resent writers implying that they are doing so by sneaking in the term "musical" alongside narrower and more concrete concepts like "low frequency extension" or "dynamic," or even "deep soundstage", "smooth", "transparent", "fast", "dark", "forward", etc. Notice how the hifi-speak practice of turning "musical" into the noun "musicality" further promotes the perception that we are talking about a well-defined property.

To me, "musical" is an emergent property that sums the performance of a system in the areas that are most important to a particular listener. To one listener, "musical" may be strongly related to PRAT and control of microdynamics. To another, it may be more related to a transparent mid-range and timbral fidelity to live music. I'm sure it's actually more complicated than those examples, or writers would describe more analytically what they are hearing, instead of resorting to the term "musicality" because they either don't have the ability to reduce what they're hearing to more specific terms or they don't feel anything is to be gained by doing so. It's hard to imagine, however, how the latter attitude could be constructive in the context of a review.

To have total musicality in reproduced music, I feel four elements are required:

1) Love of the music being performed
2) Quality of the performance of that music
3) Quality of the playback system in conveying the above two
4) Mood

You must like the music. If not, what is the significance of the other three? The performance is equally important to the music or at least it is to me providing I LIKE the music. The performance is what can touch our emotions and connect us to the art of the composer and interpret to us what is being said. If not connected, distraction may set in and maybe at those times we start thinking about how things sound, a bugaboo inflicted on all audiophiles and to me the major difference between us and the music lover who is less interested in 3, the quality of the playback system, which is ALSO least important to me. Detlof, in the year I have been tuning in to this site, I think this is one of the most important questions and issues pertaining to audiophiles and what we are about. It is a revealing question on our own individual values. I don’t think the above answer is right for all. Musical has become a "buzz” word that has different meaning to different folks as Jayboard says. To some it may mean the “sound” through the system regardless of the music. To me, it most profoundly means the totality of music I love being performed by musicians that communicate it well through a playback system that reveals all the nuances of the recording. Thought and analysis of the "sound" disappear and the art is the total focus. This is my ideal. So in reality, there is no one answer that absolutely defines musical, only different interpretations based on the importance of our own individual criteria. And to REALLY get there there the mood must also be in place then again the right mood can arrive once the music starts playing.

I have heard very "accurate" reproduction on a system with "incredible detail" rob the music of its soul. Maybe electronic music sounds awesome, but despite the fact you can hear the 2nd violinist adjust his music sheet, classcal music sounds mechanical. I think it has to do with tone,"texture" and "timeing". More buzz words of course, but you know what I mean if you have heard a really "musical" vinyl set up. Your system is "musical" if you forget what you were doing and suddenly realize you are listening to the MUSIC.

assuming some music can be characterized as art, maybe we need to back up and define art. for a moment let's say art is any medium that communicates or invokes a feeling in a person. it can be a sense of beauty, disgust, serenity or confusion, any feeling. and sure it can be different for everybody. a good synonym for musical might be expressive. then is musicality the capability of any musical event to convey it's artistic intent? not by itself it's not. listeners develop tastes and are certainly conditioned by their own life experiences. in other words the listener must be receptive to the event too. along those lines distractions can break the link between the event and the listener. in audio these include discernable errors of all kinds. so it looks like we can define audio musicality not only in terms of signal but also in terms of noise or lack thereof. in essence we're dealing with two phenomena at once, the performance and our absorption of it. what really amazes me is that it's so easy to know when the sound is not right. after all, shrillness or murkiness can be intended expressions in performance. but somehow we know when it's wrong; the connection between us and the musical event becomes obscured. hence the tried and true technique when auditioning system changes. use some music that you already have a feel for and see if the comparo evokes the feeling, enhances it or diminishes it. so all in all, i'd say musicality is a certain level of communicative expression.

I find this thread very interesting. In my pursuit of audio perfection, within my means, I find Musicality to be of the utmost importance. What is it? I think we all my have a different view of this.
For me though, Musicality means how well does a system or certain piece of equipment make me forget about the fact that I am listening to an audio system and just simply enjoy the music. I have heard very musical equipment that was very inaccurate(colorations and such) however it really emotionally connected me to the music. With this definition of musicality a system or component could have the greatest detail, incredible holographic imaging, excellent transient speed and response, unbelievable dynamics, and be the closest thing you have ever heard to live music but if it doesn't make you forget you are listening to a system and emotionally involve you in the music then it is not musical. I have heard many systems like this.
Musicality is obviously very subjective. I found my way into High End Audio because I love music. Musicality, my definition, will always be one of the main factors I judge audio components and/or systems by and in choosing to live with that component or system.