What does “musicality” really mean?

@fire_water
Beautifully put. Your description of musicality resonates strongly with me as well.

To those who prefer a warmer presentation, I don’t mean to say that musicality cannot include warmth — we all enjoy different flavours of sound. My point is simply that transparency is also an essential part of musicality.

I love string instruments — guitar, violin, cello, double bass — as well as piano and acoustic percussion. In my experience, a strongly warm-tilted system tends to mask the very qualities that make these instruments so compelling: texture, dynamics, clarity, and the natural decay of notes.

@goodlistening64
I wasn’t trying to single out or endorse TAD. In fact, I was not particularly impressed by their demo system at the high-end show I attended this year. As someone still learning, I now realise it’s better not to mention specific brands unnecessarily, as it can easily lead the discussion off track.

transparency is also an essential part of musicality.

Seems correct, never thought about it that way

I love string instruments — guitar, violin, cello, double bass — as well as piano and acoustic percussion.

Ditto! I also love high notes - bells, violin, flute, piccolos…

I now realise it’s better not to mention specific brands unnecessarily, as it can easily lead the discussion off track.

I often avoid concluding negatively of demoed components because too often they are demonstrated with poor setup/room conditions- best to listen several times in different audio chains/rooms before making a judgement.

Agree that the definition/use of musicality and warmth as descriptors can be a bit fuzzy in our high-end audio hobby, but most of us know what it means when used.  

It means you are not hating on life right now..keep it up

Musicality, to me, means smoothness, non-fatiguing sound, freedom from sibilance, articulate, good separation and dynamics with a tonal balance that feels close to real. Through recording and reproduction, I don’t mind if the playback sounds can be made better than the real performance.

An early Sensei in my audio journey described Transparency as accurate reproduction without audible "flaws" that made it obvious you were listening to a recording, he described Musicality as the emotional content that drew you in and kept you listening.  This definition has worked for me and I bet we've all heard Musical systems that weren't very transparent and Transparent systems that weren't very musical.