Fidelity vs. Musicality...........Is there a tug of War?

No

@pauly "Fidelity and musicality are not mutually exclusive; rather there is a high positive correlation between the two."  

Quite so. Everything else is hand-waving bordering on a religious experience - read over how many times people "believe" or convey their feelings and memories of a variety of ephemeral experiences.

Hence my initial one word post right at the start of all this. Its a trick question by the OP, @ishkabibil.

@mijostyn

I sometimes actually prefer to listen to less than optimally recorded music (like an old photograph) on an "ordinary" system like in the car. Focus blurred. Mistakes are forgiven.  Bit of road noise.

Judging by the volume of traffic in other places from people finding a previously favourite recording to be found wanting or difficult when played on an uber expensive high fidelity and high musical system coupled with high sensitivity speakers in a treated listening room, I’m not alone.

@stuartk perhaps you speak of musicianship?  I'm not even sure that's a word.  I am inclined to mostly agree with you.

Many recordings from many genres and cultures from years long past sound as if they were recorded in a less than optimal environment.  It has not stopped them from having a profound influence.   Many examples, but as a guitarist you may be acquainted with folk including Robert Johnson and others similar.

Anyway, back to first world issues of great import...

@bpoletti 

"If you can't define it, then you have no clue what you're talking about."

I've noticed.

@bpoletti 

"Define what is "musicality" and what is "fidelity."  

Be very specific and use objective terms, not subjective terms.  "

This is an audiophile forum, not law school.

@kijanki 

"One might prefer to look at the paintings thru yellow glasses"

Colours would be visible fundamental wavelengths/frequencies.  Not harmonics of the fundamental.

We seem to have another undefined word - "clarity".

"I took the AHB2 along with me for a weekend at our country place, in Connecticut, to see if it would be as successful with my more modest system there. That’s where I discovered that my new hero amp wasn’t quite perfect. Oh, its power and resolution were still not to be faulted, but through a pair of Monitor Audio Silver 8 speakers, the sound was somewhat hard and thin. Could it have had something to do with the Silver 8s themselves?

....

Familiar recordings of women’s voices, such as Marianne Beate Kielland singing Finzi’s "Come Away, Death" .. and Sara K.’s cover of "Can’t Stand the Rain" from her Hell or High Water.., sounded strange. Both voices were higher, not in pitch but in tonal range, as if they’d been transformed from mezzo-sopranos (which Kielland is) to sopranos. Again, I would describe it as a loss of warmth and resonance in the fundamentals of their voices. Unfortunately for the AHB2, this loss pervaded the sound of whatever recording I played. I wrote it off as an example of an amp-speaker mismatch."

- Kalman Rubinson

Yep, probably the speakers, despite John Atkinson's assurance that they should be fine. Again, I’m glad that’s all clear as mud.

Peter says in response to Karsten -

"I really wish that I shared this experience. Do you think my AHB2 may be a duff specimen? Surely not - these are mass produced and should all sound identical. If you’ve read my original posting "REVIEW - Benchmark AHB2 with Avantgarde" you’ll see that my experience is hugely different from yours. I’m inclined to turn down the volume or move on to the next track and am certainly not on the edge of my seat - and I’m not a tube enthusiast!

Why are we hearing things so differently? Either my AHB2 is a duff, or my tube amps are much better than any you’ve had in your system..."

Yes, it does make me wonder, too, especially when this is Karsten’s response (in part, its very long and jazz hands clapping) to Peter -

’..Listen to a string quartet on most tube amplifiers and it will sound big, blooming and embellished, or listen to it on most solid state amps and it will sound opaque and "twisted".’

Well, I'm glad we cleared that up.

I find this issue of timbre fascinating. It is something I have tried to understand but gave up.

I’m interested to attempt to know how the choice of an amplification medium is material in reproducing the timbre in the recorded performance.

This has been mentioned, but I’m still confused. An amp that reproduces detail/resolution may sound white/clinical/thin - is this the cutting out all the complex aspects of timbre? Or recognizing that aspects of timbre don’t exist in the recording in the first place (which clearly can’t be true)?

On the other hand, does a tube amp add artificially to the timbre that was recorded or does it just amplify the existing complex harmonics in a manner that may or may not be correct? Or some combination? Am I confusing technical terms?

Forgive me if I’m asking the wrong questions - there are knowns which are obviously unknown to me, see me struggle. I’m asking this from a measurement/objective perspective, if possible. I don’t like using the words distortion or colour - means different things to different people and handwaving ensues.