What is meant exactly by the description 'more musical'?


Once in awhile, I hear the term 'this amp is more musical' for some amps. To describe sound, I know there is 'imaging' and 'sound stage'. What exactly is meant by 'more musical' when used to describe amp?

dman777

Showing 4 responses by niodari

It is good to talk on motivations and fundamentals of our audiophile hobby... Too many posts, was basically able to read the beginning of this nice thread.

I agree that subjectivity factor cannot be ignored, we may perceive things in different ways dispite that our basic perception organs are working similarly. It also depends in which mood are we currently. And one cannot ignore the music itself. There is music that makes one feel good but doesn't somebody else, and visa versa. What matters finally is which kind of feelings provokes in you certain audio equipment while auditioning certain music. 

In practical terms, I would say that one's audio equipment is "musical" if it allows to experience the best feelings that one is able to experience auditioning a particular piece of music. As in love we associate our feelings with a particular personality, we may associate a particular audio equipment (and a piece of music) with musicality. A musical equipment would maximize the positive emotions that one is able to experience while auditioning certain music. The musical equipment would make you feel completely satisfied.

And it was said a lot what technical features a musical system should have in absolute terms. Still, some of these "absolute" features may not be that universal but can rather can be subjective. 

Mahgister, thanks for the clarification on "taste marketing", apparently, I did misunderstand you in this issue, which is a relevant point. but, if I am not wrong, here the aim of marketing is to "establish and control" audiophile tastes, not visa-versa, to create gear according to some hypothetical audiophile tastes. 

I also agree acoustics is relevant to the "musicality" but not definitive: Imagine a live concert in an open field or an audiophile that sets up his equipment in an open area.  He has an ideal "acoustics" (which is "no acoustics"), and he wishes to enjoy the music at the maximum possible level of the joy. 

Mahgister, you expressed your talks perfectly well. I also understand what “not even wrong” means. But let  me not agree with you. Firstly, I don’t see any relationship between individual taste and marketing. I am too far from marketing but I think i have my individual taste. As a simple example, the food I like that I find in supermarkets often disappear, because what I like most people just do not like. I cannot say that this is equally true regarding my tastes in music, but It is also partly true compared to the taste of the vast majority of the people.
 

You set up your experiment for a hypothetical individual who doesn’t exist.
And even more, all that  surrounds us is the result of our individual perception, only our “observation” makes solid things to exist. Imagine that nothing of this exists in reality, and is a result of our imagination (wave collapse in quantum theory).