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

RE: not mutually exclusive, it seems to me that, with all due respect to those whom have much more knowledge and experience than I possess, 
terms such as musicality and resolution are frequently bandied about here as though we all define such terms the same way. Judging from posts on this thread, we clearly do not!   

One can put together a system that measures really well but in the end, it's not an oscilloscope that's going to listen to the system-- it's individual human beings, whose perception of sound and aesthetic preferences can vary considerably, to say the least. We are all wired differently and it's not uncommon for reviewers to profess they enjoy a particular component in spite of less-than-stellar measurements.  

It's my impression that many audiophiles are fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of simply pleasing their own ears. They somehow feel they must utilize objective baselines to justify their gear choices. As a creative person, I find this distrust of aesthetic judgement both very alien and very puzzling. 

 I've played guitar for many decades but I do not require that my system precisely replicates the sound of my Martin or PRS or any guitar for that matter.  What I require is that when I hear a recording of a guitar, that it moves me, physically and emotionally and this has far more to do with what the guitarist is playing than SQ. However, this is clearly not the case for everyone. There does indeed appear to be a divide of sorts-- on one side, those whose enjoyment of music appears to be largely determined by SQ -- how the music is presented-- and on the other, those of us for whom music is a vital necessity and who'd still listen even if we could only hear music  on a transistor radio. The bottom line is, we are all wired differently and there's little we can do about it, so it's not a case of one approach being superior to the other-- to suggest that would be as ridiculous as asserting that blonde hair is intrinsically superior to brown hair. 

Whether this divide can accurately be described as a tug of war between musicality and fidelity, I'll leave for others to decide. . . what does seem true to me is that, in the end, each of us has to please ourselves.

@noske:

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

Musicianship is mastery of expressive means. That is half the equation.  The other half is having something valuable to express. 

There exist musicians who display dazzling technique yet who's playing communicates little-- there is an emptiness at the heart of it, 

Likewise, there are musicians with limited technique who manage to convey something profound.  

@mijostyn:

"The best systems make everything sound better, everything. When confronted with a system capable of the absolute sound everyone will think it sounds great. Everyone knows what "right" is when they hear it."

I'm curious: what percentage of audiophiles would you suspect are able to afford one of the "best systems"? 

"It "moves" you or it doesn't ".

+1

This is what I go by but clearly it's not the credo for many posting here. 

I can't help but suspect it makes a difference if you actually play an instrument. 

@kijanki:  

"One might prefer to look at the paintings thru yellow glasses. There is nothing wrong with it, but he doesn't see what artist painted".

Yes... BUT    we are not robots with identical identical sound perception software installed!  We each hear sound differently and our brains interpret it differently. 

And there's a further difference. Whereas, perception of visual art is a direct process-- from canvas to eye to brain, in audio, the process has more intermediate steps (recording/mixing and conveyance of the music to our ears via circuits and speakers). 

Is it not true that these added steps color/distort the accuracy of the original "painting ?

You can have the more accurate system in the world and you are still hearing what pleased the ears of the engineer/producer in the studio-- your experience is ultimately subject to the coloring/distortion associated with their taste and this is associated with their preferences in mics, monitors, etc. 

Perhaps I'm missing something but I don't see how looking at a painting and listening to a recording are analogous. 

It seems to me that for the analogy to hold up, we'd have to compare viewing a painting in a gallery to hearing music in a concert hall.  

@mijostyn:

Thank you for your response. 

What you assert is certainly consistent with my experience. I started out with a really (in my room) edgy combo-- B&W's with Rotel and Creek components. After that my knee-jerk response was to go too far in the other direction-- Silverline monitors with Jolida tubed integrated and tube CDP. 

Moving to SS amp and transport + DAC helped but the fact that the system is located in our living room imposes constraints that gear upgrades cannot surmount, unfortunately.  

I'll have to wait until we move (likely within 5 years) and I can set up a dedicated room and start over from scratch, with neutrality as the aim. 
Given my age (65) my next system will be my last and I'd like to do a better job, this time. 

I'm not by nature, a patient individual- - I'm thinking I may buy a decent set of headphones and try to satisfy my audio jones that way, in the interim.

BTW, there's no way I can afford 100K.  I might manage 50K.  I'm OK with used gear.  

@millercarbon:

Are you suggesting this for mods... or ????????