What is Musicality?

Hello everyone, In my last posting I forgot to add a comment made by my friend -- the one who doesn't believe in cords, cables, plugs and receptacles -- about my speakers. I have the Totem Rainmakers but they will be soon replaced by the latest Merlin TSMs. When he heard the Rainmakers in my system he felt they were a very poor speaker because of the mid-bass "boom/bloom". Well, the "boom/bloom" was there alright but it was not the fault of the speakers. After he headed home I did a bit or research. I top-loaded each of the Rainmakers with about 30 lbs. of sand and replaced the stock plugs on the end of the Master Couplers with Oyaide plugs. My system was transformed with the "boom bloom" completely gone. The Rainmakers are actually an excellent speaker in their class if they are paired with the "right" equipment and tweaked appropriately. This goes to show how much we have to experiment to find that elusive synergy that will allow our systems to produce the most musicality they are capable of producing.

Musicality - the term, since you asked, is a description of human characteristics (applied to persons not components). Persons of greater musicality however, typically will possess the ability to discern musical nuances (and possibly component nuances) better than persons of lesser musicality (or at least, easier than persons with lesser musicality). This is not to suggest that a person of superior musicality can, should, or will enjoy or appreciate music and equipment any better than persons of lesser musicality. Now this only applies if you want to use the (word) in its proper context. I am not suggesting that when the (word) is used out of context that the "intended hypothesis" is lacking or incorrect. In that case, the wrong word was selected to convey the given hypothesis. That doesn’t mean the hypothesis is invalid…I’m just saying!

Oh, and by the way, using the word in proper context, I am not a person of great musicality. With that said, music is a significant part of my life, I am an audiophile and I appreciate all faucets of the industry. Mozart was a man of great musicality; to a lesser degree so was Michael Jackson. Anyway, “musicality” is not a great word for describing audio components. How about simply using the word, “musical” since I believe that is what people actually mean anyway. Again, I’m just saying…!

2chnlben, This is exactly it, IMHO. Musicality refers to the human characteristic. Musicality is often used erroneously to describe equipment but as long as we understand this then we know that people mean musical when they are talking about the musicality of their system. And, of course, this does not mean that a person who is less musical will enjoy music any less than a person who is more musical.

Sabai - One factor is missing in this discussion. It's passion for music. I think it accounts for 99% of music appreciation. I know people who are interested in one genre of music like Opera or Classical and don't care for the rest of it. At the very beginning of Jazz many musical people refused to even call it music. Generation of my parents was not much into Rock and Roll. I would say that interest in music is everything while musicality is far second. There is also a lot of music that has no melody at all (or melody has secondary importance). I know few people who are very musical (remembering phrase and singing or humming in tune) but not really into music (wasted gift?). They enjoy music, but not enough to buy CD/LP. Again - passion for music is everything.

Kijanki, I agree. Without a passion for music then what's there to talk about here? But I have never given a thought to passion for music that is not accompanied by musicality. People who are musical but not into music? I guess it's possible. But for me the two go hand in hand. Like Frank Sinatra used to sing in "Love and Marriage". They go together like a horse and carriage.