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...
Musicality" in a system? What IS that ?
I thought I would venture to bring a question in, the interest in which unites us all. What has happened, when we describe a system as "musical"? Is it just a subjective and passing state of mind, which fills us with joy as we listen and if so, what does it need for us to get there? System tweaking perhaps or rahter "ego tweaking" like good company, a good wine, a good cigar etc? Both perhaps? Or could there be objective criteria, which have to met for a system to attain this often elusive and volatile quality? I am convinced that there are...but to your mind, what are they?