Fidelity vs. Musicality...........Is there a tug of War?

Be as critical as you care to be about the “sounds” of your reproduction system. If you are continually tweaking and searching for more/different products, you are failing, and possibly even miserable.  If your system doesn’t make cohesive, convincing music that tricks you into focusing on the performance by becoming emotionally involved, you and “it” have failed imho. I believe you have missed the point. Gear is cool, building a kit is fun, challenging, and possibly even truly rewarding.  Though for me, it is a necessary evil to get to what I have a true love for, and that’s the performance, the music. Don’t even go there with the crap that I have settled, or that I am trying to convince myself that it’s okay to not be constantly searching and spending and tweaking. We could mince words all day, let’s happily listen together instead. 

Here is conclusion from Absolute Sound review of AHB2, but it applies to subject discussed here:

"Because accuracy allied to absolutely reliable performance is the goal of all the Benchmarks, they are not products that tend to attract cults or other sorts of starry-eyed enthusiasts, wholly lacking any of the quirks, foibles, idiosyncrasies, sonic flavorings, euphonic distortions, and so on that characterize the objects of most audio cults. Professionals buy Benchmark because they know the products work and are reliable and accurate—indeed, reference caliber. Music lovers buy them because they are neutral and accurate and thus reproduce the tonal character of voices and instruments correctly (and also, I presume, because they are reasonably priced, most musicians, like most other people, being typically not wealthy). But audiophiles? Well, the longer I’m in this racket, the less I sometimes think I understand what audiophiles really want except that a lot of dallying about with components, equipment swapping, and coloration matching seems to be what amuses them. I’m not sure I can in good conscience recommend this amplifier to them as I am not sure they are in search of what it offers: a precision instrument designed to perform the precisely defined task of reproducing music and sound accurately, which it does essentially to perfection. But to anyone else, the AHB2 gets as high, enthusiastic, and confident a thumbs up as my arm is capable of reaching."

Musicality is a very vague term and in most cases it means nothing. Often it is just the ability to enjoy music.

So. First of all, we need to realise that hi-fi does not play music, it just pushes and pulls air giving us an opportunity to reconstruct sound waves into music. Whether we can do it depends of what he've got between ears. That's why a Beethoven string quartet is beautiful music for some and just noise and cacophony for others.  

Second, "musicality" always goes hand in hand with fidelity.  A musician carefully selects his instrument because he or she is looking for a certain tone, and fidelity is needed to reproduce it correctly.  The interaction between musicians brings you the essence of the music and the good timing and truthful micro dynamics are needed to reproduce it.  

Etc etc...

Excessive detail have nothing to do with fidelity, it is just what it is - subjectively excessive details, often caused by distorted reproduction of certain frequency range. Transparency though is vital for an emotional impact, or in other words musicality.

So there is no contradiction between musicality and fidelity, quite the opposite. A more interesting dilemma is between fidelity and realism. Do we need high fidelity to create an illusion of realism? 

Previous post......

Musicality is a very vague term and in most cases it means nothing. Often it is just the ability to enjoy music.


Means nothing?


OMG

kijanki, this thread is not about you and your Benchmark.

Musicality is a rather vague and nebulous term but I think coined to differentiate between a system that is overly detailed and a system that has detail but does not slap you alongside the head. The fixation with detail has lead to systems that verge on the unlistenable when a few of these detail monsters are combined.

I have such a system that allows me to listen to maybe 20% of my files, the others are just screech. I am working to attain a system that truly entertains with the vast majority of my collection. So to address the OP's question, I err on the side of 'listenability'.

The endless striving for detail, detail, detail leaves me cold. The type of detail some systems produce are not heard at a live performance unless you are one of the performers. Have you ever closed your eyes at an unamplified performance and tried to locate a certain instrument? I find I can hear where it is located but certainly not with clinical precision. I feel audiophiles themselves are partly responsible for this sorry state of affairs by elevating detail as a fundamental requirement.

A friend of mine borrowed a Devialet amp claimed to be awesome. I'm sure the measurements revealed vanishingly low distortion etc. but the amp did not stay connected for very long. We inserted his 300B tube job and immediately relaxed with the music, enjoying the sound coming at us. It did not have the bass slam or control of the other amp but it sure did entertain us. My &%^$ detailed system is hardly used now except for movies which used to take a back-seat to the music evenings my wife and I once looked forward to. Sad but true.