The music either sucks you in or not.
What does “musicality” really mean?
After 50+ years in this hobby, I realised that many reviewers use musicality to describe a warm system. Warmth often comes from extra even-order harmonics, softer transients, and a bit of mid-bass lift. Pleasant for vocals, but it can also hide detail and affect timing, especially with strings and percussion.
I also found that “sterile” sound usually points to room issues or system matching, not the recording. Engineers don’t master music to sound lifeless.
These days, if I want warmth, I just play music that naturally has it, instead of relying on equipment to add coloration.
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- 46 posts total
Musicality needs to start with the recording. If a recording is not good you end up focusing on the sound and its imperfections more than the music and it’s distracting. Assuming a good recording, musicality to me means getting effortlessly lost in the music and the performance. Balance is key — if anything sticks out it detracts from believability, naturalness, and ultimately musicality. That said, I think this can vary greatly by listener and individual preferences but the goal remains the same — the ability to get effortlessly lost in the performance. To me, that’s the Holy Grail of high-end audio and ultimately what it’s all about. So a system that sounds perfectly musical to me, using this definition, might sound overly warm or sterile to someone else, but that’s what makes the audio world go round. That’s my take on it anyway. |
It's very hard to hear the musicality and warmth in immersive listening sound systems (almost all of your audio systems). The immersive system is actually much distorted sound system and it sound good only to a'philes who can hear in immersive sound. We can't hear the musicality and warmth of the original music in immersive sound system. In below video, 1st half is the natural sound guitar which is same as a natural sound audio system (musical system). 2nd half is the distorted sound guitar (all electric guitars) which is same as the immersive sound audio system. Natural sound upgraded electric guitar In below video, the left speaker sounds distorted and can't hear much music. The left speaker sounds bit better in immersive listening, but the original musicality is heard to hear. Almost your systems are sounding the left speaker. Natural vs. Un-natural sound speaker comparison I think these videos are a best way to explain how hard to achieve the musicality in audio. Alex/Wavetouch audio |
- 46 posts total