What is Musicality?

****I stand in awe of the mystery what music is and what it can do to us.****

I think that says it all. It is mysterious; and certainly re what (and how) it does to us.

****What fascinates me is, that the medium of transmission per se is dead.****

I suppose; and we are probably saying much the same thing. Music, in a score or recorded in some medium needs a recipient (listener) with some degree of intellect and capability of feeling emotions. I will say that I was always amazed when my pet parakeet would sing along only to Mozart :-). I personally like the mystery of it all and sometimes our search for precise answers causes us to lose a little bit of the romance and emotion of it all.

In my original OP from 2010 I was not so concerned about the quality of reproduction. Since then, my system has evolved to a much higher level. It provides much more listener satisfaction than it did back then. As a result, I have come to appreciate how much the quality of a good audio system adds to enjoyment of the music.

Learsfool,

But, of course, music is far more than a language. It is processed by the brain in a unique way. For instance, lyrics are not processed by the brain as words. They are processed as part of a musical whole.

And, of course, there is an intellectual side to music. But that is not what most of us are concerned about when we listen.

Frogman,

As you rightly point out, much of what we perceive musically is dictated by our own personality. To that we can add our mood at the moment and our personal memories. What is felt and evoked in one person may not be the same as what is felt and evoked in another. Just as we cannot know how each person feels when he tastes vanilla we cannot know how each person reacts under the skin to any given musical piece.

Detlof,

When all is said and done, music does indeed remain a mystery. As it should.

Let musicality be a measuring factor of Music. You can't define any units of measure similar to kilogram or meters per second, but rather find it as a combination of scales, notes, rhythm(s) intervals, chords, harmonic maneuvers, sophistication, level of challenge of performer or band or orchestra.
In general as an example, we can subdivide to three sizes just like we often used to see t-shirts in the department store: Small, Medium, Large, XLarge, XX, etc.
Size will depend on most of factors mentioned and combined above. The largest musicality usually found in classical music and the best musicians usually classically trained.

Trying to dissect musicality is like trying to dissect love. We enjoy talking about it but, in the end, the talk does not encompass or define the real thing. The description is not the described. The real thing is elusive and mysterious.

Cassettes are musical, CDs are unmusical. Mystery solved.