If everything sounds clear and is in the right proportions, but is not convincing enough to provide your brain with an emotional experience, the system is likely analytical sounding. If the system consistently transports you into the performance so that you can forget about how the system sounds, odds are good it’s a musical sounding system.
...transparency, resolution, and micro dynamics are more critical than perfect tonal balance, because that’s what reveals the space where the performance takes place....either your brain buys it, or it doesn’t, but it’s also heavily dependent on the recording at hand.
This. Study this. Print it, cut it out, tape it to your monitor. Read until memorized.
If your goal is an audio system for enjoying listening to music then you will want a musical system. If your goal is to have charts and graphs and jargon to talk tech then you want analytical. Thus the First Commandment of Audiophile: Know Thyself.
Great post thanks...
I will just add that the way i took to reach this level with the gear i own was near impossible by the power of the gear itself alone...
And my gear choice is very good...( but less good than yours for sure but not too much afar ) 😁😊
I was in the obligation to reach this level to treat mechanically my gear against vibrations and i was in the obligation to decrease the noise floor level of the house and system...
And it was not enough at all...
i was in the obligation to specifically synchronize my passive acoustic treatment and active mechanical acoustic controls of the room to the speakers specificities... And doing this ask for me to listen to the Speakers/room interaction for more than a year daily with small modifications one after the other....I even create a thread about my crazy journey...
To fine tune the speakers /room acoustic relation i used mainly natural timbre of voices and piano and some others instruments i know very well...
It was a success... Like you just say:
" If the system consistently transports you into the performance so that you can forget about how the system sounds, odds are good it’s a musical sounding system."
I dont claim nor pretend that my system is better than anyone else at all... On the contray looking at the virtual audio system here i can say more than half people at least own better component than mine... No discussion about that here...
But when we have the minimum S.Q. to recreate what you just described we forgot the sound and we listen music... It is my case and my dream comes true...
My only claim with an under 500 bucks system and almost no cost for my controls device homemade is my ratio S.Q./ price is really over the roof....
