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

and yet, surprisingly not every ear brain is a fan of a well played Strad….

there are outliers @atmasphere ….. thankfully devolved as they might be….few

u should get the Tannoy back, apply learning s … then draw a conclusion …..

the some people don’t like the Strad comment was all about taste…

The ear brain is king but tastes are the puppet master for most all of audio… and more..

Interesting , some people can hear negative feedback = TIM and simple temporal distortion in addition to the various forms of harmonic distortion Ralph and a FEW ear/brain centric designers ( very rightly but not completely ) focus on.

The comment about the long term ( listening) vs short term ear brain appeal is under rated…otherwise many a good listener would pay WAY more attention to level matching ( RIP Roger Modjeski…Lord, i miss you )

Thankfully music isn’t a sine wave, although i am sure there is a shoegazer sub variant approaching this… feedback looks great w sine waves…

IF you want an excellent evaluation of the temporal distortions get a variable negative feedback amplifier RM-9 , adjust for level and evaluate the stereo image using the excellent Opus 3 disc… Depth of Image

As for a Hybrid amplifier that i find passes the LONG term musical listening test, I can recommend 3:

Vanderteen M7 HPA, Aesthetix Atlas, Music Reference RM-200

there are of course more…..

and IF you can’t hear how an amplifier destroys temporal information, try getting your system in phase… and or considering a speaker that passes the impulse test… Since getting the electronics in phase is free, start there….

The sneaky pitfall is taking a waveform that has already happened, reducing it, flipping it out of phase and feeding it back and expecting it to heal a different waveform. The issue is can the ear brain perceive and evaluate this as “ musical “.

One reason why many but not all low to no negative FB designers use time and phase accurate speakers… Always cracks me up when phase accuracy obsession in electronics is swamped by higher order filters downstream.

I do have a lot of respect for Ralph, and i would say his gear is very musical. There are of course others working the same problems w different perspectives… and some probably now know the ANSWERS…thinking in particular of Roger and Charlie ( Ayre )

Best to you Ralph !

measure and listen = ….. theres even a switch for that on ( only ) the Ayre DAC. IMO it’s really the only approach if the goal is more than flavorizing or worse, blind ( deaf ) objectivism….

I mostly agree on same perceptual rules…until we encounter pitch perfect individuals….

Well, one must consider the wide range of distortion possible in the amplifier, indeed the whole chain… it’s mostly dominated by the transducers… and IF you can hear it includes temporal and transient distortion…. 

While the dna code we all run is very strong… we are not identical… after all there are…some people with perfect pitch….. perhaps a small allowance for the existance of God…

Fatigue free PRAT +