Musicality" in a system? What IS that ?

Katharina, you make a great point, and precisely the point that I made recently in the "Music to test systems" thread. You also provide a great segue to a "second chapter" in the discussion of musicality; as suggested by Gregm. In the stated thread I pointed out that I tend to avoid using "audiophile quality" recordings to audition equipment, but use instead recordings of great performances of perhaps mediocre, or worse, sound quality. These performances should have clearly identifiable musical traits. The reasoning here is that a great sounding recording is probably going to sound at least OK on any but grossly flawed systems. A truly great piece of equipment, or system, however, will let the music come through in spite of the inferior sound quality; that is, assuming that there is great music in that recording to begin with. Those are the systems that are truly musical and satisfy in the long run. Sounds to me that your system is indeed musical, as it certainly honors the music. But this brings up some interesting points. You state: "So it seems, it's not only the system, it's also the performers". I would qualify that comment in that the performers are never secondary to the system. As I'm sure you would agree, great sound without a great performance is pretty pointless. Also, let's ask ourselves this question, eventhough it may be just a matter of semantics: Can a system really BE musical? To be musical implies a kind of active role in the resulting sound; that is the last thing that a sound system should do. A sound system should get out of the way as much as possible, and simply let the music through as originally performed, as much as possible. This is why I have a lot of trouble with the way that the term "musical" is used by audiophiles. The misuse of the term was well covered in the first round of this discussion. But what about a system that enhances dynamics or is very "alive" sounding and makes one "tap our toes"; as was suggested as criteria for the label "musical". How do we know that this is not really a distortion? There is in fact equipment that distort in this manner, just as some seem to decrease dynamics and make recordings sound bland and lifeless. The real answer to this question is a tough one. The easy answer is "If the music moves me, then it's musical". Hard to argue with that; and in fact we tend to get too involved with the "why's" and "what if's" of this hobby. But hi-fi is a hobby; music listening is far more than just a hobby. I have trouble calling something that can move me to tears, or make me feel joy or anger, a hobby. So the only conclusion I can come up with is that intimate familiarity with the sound of live music is the only way to be able to honestly assess a system's musicality. By sound I don't just mean issues of timbre but more importantly, of rhythm and dynamics. Just as many audiophiles are able to distinguish between small gradations in the "brightness" or "darkness" of a system, as exemplified by the way that say the VTA of a phono cartridge is adjusted; there are just as many fine gradations in the way that a system let's the rhythmic energy of a musical moment develop. One of my favorite recordings for this is Sonny Rollins' "The Bridge". This recording, in mono, is not particularly noteworthy as concerns most audiophile criteria; but man does it swing. Rollins has such a powerful and commanding rhythmic thrust that it is obvious that he sets the pace, not the rhythm section, as is usually the case. On a great system you can hear this clearly. When Rollins turns up the heat in a particular phrase, the rhythm sections needs a moment to catch up. On a lesser (less musical) system, this is blurred; and while you might be able to hear the increase in intensity, it's too uniform, too general. A very important musical detail is lost. But going back to Katharina's point; and this is IMO crucial to this discussion. Wonderful musical energy in a performance might be diminished by a less than great recording or playback system, but it is unlikely that it will be destroyed. That is the power of music.

Katharina, Frogman, thankyou! You've tought me something. I realise now, that hi-fi as a hobby has indeed to be strictly separated from the experience of actively listening to music. It's quite obvious to me, that tweaking my system, placing speakers, considering the pro and cons of equipment, the hobby part in fact, is a means to an end and no more than that. The end would be the musical experience. Without a knowledge of the real gestalt of music through listening to live music in its many forms as often as possible, how will I ever be able to know in which direction to tweak my system to? Memory is closely linked with emotionality and if I am deeply moved by a live performance say of the Alban Berg Quartet playing Schubert's "Death and the Maiden", there will be an engram in me of how a string quartet sounds with all its tonal, dynamic and rythmic nuances. The more live musical performances "get to me", the more an inner, probably unconscious knowledge will be built up through the years, about how a system should sound. So building a system and later tweaking it, is in a way a "remembering", a reemerging of the music's gestalt, which has been dormant in me, until the system begins to "remind" me. Once that has been achieved, I can tweak actively, to get say the sound of the cello, the viola and the violins, their rythms, phrasings, interplay and dynamics from ppp to fff plus their spacing of course as close to the gestalt's engram as is humanly possible. I might not be able to do without "audiophile" software of high recording quality at this stage to get closer to my goal. Here anyway, I will rather be listening to the system not to to the music. Once I'm through with that however, I will be able to do exactly what Katharina has told us about: Enjoy a more than mediocre recording of high musical quality and be moved by it, because even then the system lets some of the gestalt of the performance come through. Maybe the benchmark for the "musicality" of a system lies just here ! Thanks again and regards,

Thanks you Frogman for putting the inherent meaning of my post into intelligible words. I think you hit the nail squarely on its proverbial head and yes Detlof, you describe very well how a "system" can be evolved until it is approaching "musicality". To my husband and I, tweaking has indeed been a process to bring out the components inner musical strenghts, in a way to lessen some of their signature, which they might inprint on the musical performance, which is especially difficult with gear which is seductively euphonic. There comes a point in the development of a music system I think, where you are at a crossroads and must decide, in what direction you want to lead your laborings: An aproximation to the original event as recorded or an euphonically pleasing "sound". Both roads could, I suppose, lead to a "musical" system, but if I follow Frogman correctly, true musicality can only be achieved, if at least some of the original musical performance comes through in its spirit and emotion, as an in part facsimile of its original "living presence" in our home.

An illuminating rendition, indeed! I wonder if we could stretch Katharina's & frogman's proposition to say (borrowing Detlof's term) that musicality is the capability of evoking "gestalt" of a performance in which we did not and COULD not partake.. I'm thinking of recordings, taking place during a specific event or when the THEN atmosphere was emotionally charged, of which, most of us have no similar experiential reference... can something of that atmosphere filander through even for a fleeting moment. I'm thinking, say, of a performance of Beethoven's 5th piano Concerto by Gieseking / Orchestra of the 3rd Reich (!!)/ A. Rother. Allegedly, A. Hitler was present. Gieseking, starts to sound (to my ears) hysterical as of the adaggio, and continues unto the end. There is a disturbing edge to the sound -- it's not the recording which, for the time, is excellent (and in nascent stereo!!). Subjectivity? No doubt. Am I prone to "suggestibility"? I did not read the blurb: this is a friend's CD, he wanted to surprise me.
Thank you for making the exchanges on this thread ever more fascinating.
Greg

Greg, I think your point is of great validity and importance. I would say, if we get an inkling of the "gestalt" of a performance, can feel something of the general atmosphere, as in your striking example, especially of course in suroundings and circumstances we are unfamiliar with, then we have a music system of quality.
Thanks to your insight shared with us, you have now given me personally an explanation, why I prefer live recordings so much, inspite of the recording drawbacks they might have. You put out the lights and are often more easily than not drawn into the performance with a superior system at your disposal. Cheers,