What is meant exactly by the description 'more musical'?


Once in awhile, I hear the term 'this amp is more musical' for some amps. To describe sound, I know there is 'imaging' and 'sound stage'. What exactly is meant by 'more musical' when used to describe amp?

dman777

Defining "musical" as being a concept completely determined by individual tastes and biases is not even wrong...

Do you know what means the expression "not even wrong" ?😁

The expression was popularized by scientific debates, about the supercords theory by Peter Woit writing about physical theory that cannot be falsified by experiments...

Speaking of "individual taste" in acoustic cannot be proven right or wrong, because acoustic use all the parameters constraining human tastes in general to study"musicality" ... Then defining "musicality" in musical judgement of playback system by " individual taste" is not a claim that is even wrong and it cannot be falsified ... It is simply a claim beside the main point which is defining "musical" for all humanity ...Individual taste cannot be falsified by acoustical experiments , contrary to supercords, because individual taste exist for sure , but is not as an individual factor the matter of acoustic studies when acoustician and neurologist look for a definition of the "musical" experience for all humans ...

The feeling and perception associated by harmony and euphony , when we speak of the "musical" concept associated to a playback system, resulted mainly from the way the gear-system is rightfully embedded in a room/house mechanically, electrically and especially acoustically , and this in a way to make possible the TRANSLATION of the specific parameters trade-off choices of the recording engineer from the recording hall, TRANSLATED into your system/room/ears/brain... It is acoustics and psychoacoustics matter, it is not about mere INDIVIDUAL taste but about the way the ears/brain of all humans are wired to perceive timbre, localization of sounds, distortions as harmonious or not and immersiveness if all is well done as the end result ...

Thinking that "musical" is mainly an individual taste affair is created by marketters to sell gear according to your "taste".... It is not even wrong because : taste there is for sure, but it is not about individual taste but it is about the collective common "taste" and neurological biases of the human species as determined in a general way by neurologists working with acousticians and musicians and non trained human subjects statistically ...

Then when i feel that my system/room is "musical" i use my trained experience and history, call it my "taste", but what caused my feeling is the room parameters, the speakers parameters the inner ear parameters the brain parameters all coupled together... It is abbreviated by the word "taste" in marketing...

But marketing does not replace science and basic knowledge about mechanical, electrical and acoustical embeddings working controls of the mechanical field of the gear/room , of the electrcal field of the gear/room/house and of the acoustical field of the room and of the psychoacoustics physiological human biases of the listener as a human subject ...

i hope to had been clear ...

Others can explain it more simply than me , i dont master english very well ...😁

Taste there is but it is not about taste...

I thought that this short sentence could kill all debate but i was naive.... People stick to half truth more strongly than to lies...

😊

Mahgister, you expressed your talks perfectly well. I also understand what “not even wrong” means. But let  me not agree with you. Firstly, I don’t see any relationship between individual taste and marketing. I am too far from marketing but I think i have my individual taste. As a simple example, the food I like that I find in supermarkets often disappear, because what I like most people just do not like. I cannot say that this is equally true regarding my tastes in music, but It is also partly true compared to the taste of the vast majority of the people.
 

You set up your experiment for a hypothetical individual who doesn’t exist.
And even more, all that  surrounds us is the result of our individual perception, only our “observation” makes solid things to exist. Imagine that nothing of this exists in reality, and is a result of our imagination (wave collapse in quantum theory). 
 

As a drummer and one who has played gigs with people who have been on gold and platinum Lps and even a gig with a 9 time grammy nominee who turned to me after the 4th song and said "you guys can really play "

Here is my take on what is "Musical" in audio gear

Non musical= words like "soundstage, upper bass, smooth highs, detail etc etc

Musical =. grooving to the beat, nodding ones head, dancing, singing along etc

musicians have no idea what audiophiles talk about...the list of words is endless

In my findings....the more words used to describe a system....the less musical it is.

 

 

Mahgister, you expressed your talks perfectly well. I also understand what “not even wrong” means. But let  me not agree with you. Firstly, I don’t see any relationship between individual taste and marketing. I am too far from marketing but I think i have my individual taste. As a simple example, the food I like that I find in supermarkets often disappear, because what I like most people just do not like. I cannot say that this is equally true regarding my tastes in music, but It is also partly true compared to the taste of the vast majority of the people.

 

Before disagreeing with someone first we must understand him ... 😁

My english mastery is really bad and i know it when i read philosopher as Santayana...
 
You completely miss my point... Then my english is more than bad indeed...😊
 
For sure there is no direct relation between individual taste and the gear pieces upgrade proposed .... Market sellers dont want you to loose your "taste" and forced you to buy their piece  . They want in the opposite first  confirm you in your taste omniscience and rightfulness...Second, this product they sell is for those who had a selective "taste" precisely.... They dont sell  ketchup in audio and they dont want to convince a high end kitchen fine cook to buy ketchup... Do you get it ?
 
My point is about the importance of acoustic experience and concepts in not only the definition of "musical"  concept  but also for his experience... What we hear is conditioned by the way we are trained by our own history ...We must go further in life and we can learn how to hear new music and we can learn basic acoustics too to understand what to hear and how to modify it by changing the parameters... Tuning a room is like tuning a piano in many ways...
 
 An acoustician designing a great Acoustic Hall must go beyond his untrained  innate  "taste" and apply concepts inherited from his training as musician and acoustician  to assure an optimal experience for the listeners.... There is no irrational or idiosyncratic  "taste" here at play.... ( It is not here  as a consumer going with his "taste"  to buy an amplifier Mcintosh or Pass labs as the  ultimate acoustic answer to all his listening experience problems  etc ) 
 
In my room with my chosen gear system when it is a synergetical relatively   well made choice , nevermind his price, me too i would be in the obligation to set my speakers/ears/room right , not according to my "taste" so much but with my acoustic knowledge  acquired by experiments or past experience ...
 
Taste there is....(but it is not about taste here)
 
Then claiming that taste play  the main role or do not play any  role at all  is being "not even wrong" , these  are  useless  claims  ...
 
Acoustics with an (s) is not mere room acoustic but include psychoacoustics ... It is the knowlefge and experiments basis to not only define but reach a more "musical " experience in MY ROOM  or in any room because all the concepts used were reach after deep studies and experiments with all kind of human subjects with all different tastes, trained , untrained or partially trained ......
 
 
You set up your experiment for a hypothetical individual who doesn’t exist.
And even more, all that  surrounds us is the result of our individual perception, only our “observation” makes solid things to exist. Imagine that nothing of this exists in reality, and is a result of our imagination (wave collapse in quantum theory). 
 
Also you confuse creative imagination with fantasy in perception...
 
When we perceive something, it is the result of conditioning and habit.... We are blind to reality, we see what we had learn to see  with the CONCEPTS at our disposal...
 
Now imagine a children drawing made of points , this set of point must be completed by adding the lines.... Imagine there is no numbers identifying the set of points... You need creative imagination to guess rightfully how to com-plete the form without errors... Fantasy or passive imagination will attract you to any form "imagined"  but not the good one...
 
 Leonardo Da Vinci as well as archimedes physico=geometrical imagintion with his fulcrum point concept, Goethe with his seeing of  the plant metamorphosis  in time  etc all thse three  geniuses use creative imagination to ENHANCE perception  out of the robotic day to day learned habit...
 
 No need of  quantum physics to understand basic perception and the necessity to train us to improve it... We see and look with eyes/brain processing + creative imagination +thinking concepts....