Engineer types explaining musicality.
Like Sherwin-Williams explaining Rembrandt.
Read Keats aloud and get back to me
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I read poetry...And for those who love poetry as me this fact, does not nullify the other facts, and it does not means that in audio "musicality ", for a musician, a designer, and acoustician or an audiophile, does not implies acoustics and mechanical and electrical parameters controls of the system/room and even the use of psychoacoustics parameters of the design "musicality" as explained by atmasphere about harmonics and "distortion" ...And it also implies our own heart feelings listening music and our brain acoustic biases history too .... As Michelangelo designing architecture implies these objective knowledge and his subjective feeling and perceptive history in his master pieces ... Now if we means "musicality" in music , as a musician, a designer and an acoustician or as a music lover it is related first to the heart feelings and the brain biases history but also in second to the acoustics parameters and to our brain acoustic biases history...Any pianist test the piano objective health before playing and the acoustic Hall value before playing if he can ... In the two cases the objective and subjective factors meet together in the same individual body/brain , mine for example when i optimize my system, listening a quartet music to test it and first appreciate the musical results in the two aspects acoustical and musical in my room for my heart as in classical or jazz music ..... i pick my gear pieces by statistical reviews impressions and then i optimize it in my room/system .. I cannot review it in a showroom with different pieces, different room than mine anyway...my taste has little to do with the gear choices ...I use subjective reviews and objective parameters to evaluate a possible synergy.. ... The rest is a failed or succeeding optimization and embedding process where for sure my acquired and innate biases play a great role , call them my taste if you want , but i use mainly mechanical, electrical and acoustical facts to test my gear with my "taste" ......... Then attacking the motives of an engineer as atmasphere with his understanding of music or poetry is beside the point made ...I presume atmasphere love classical music and jazz ...He seems to know psychoacoustics at least ...That matter a lot ...
As said the great mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, also a poet : «Nothing really important can be proved ». this sentence this maxim was aimed not only for mathematics but for anything in life ... The second greatest mathematician of the century perhaps , Cantor , wrote that « the essence of Mathematics is pure freedom and creativity ».. Now take these two sentences together to understand what they means together... They means that in mathematics as in life some deep problem cannot be solved in the past paradigm, as the parallell postulate , or the question of the actual infinite, for example , we must them not trying to solve the problem with a demonstration and a proof which are not possible anyway; in the opposite we must create first a new world to SHOW the hidden value of these problems as Cantor did , as Lobatchevsky or Bolyai did ... It was no more a mere proof mechanism in a known world first but the heart feeling and the mind feeling about a new world , a new conceptual scheme living as an organism in the spirit of any genius; then first and last more a perception than a logical proof ... Then even in mathematics the feeling and the concepts play together , as in acoustic, and as in music understanding, or as in any human endeavor ... Pure reactive subjective romantism or pure objective materialism are blind alleys, the spiritual takes over the body and the heart together ... As illustrated by Goethe or William Blake in very different ways ...
We cannot prove God exist or anything of real value as love or Beauty, or musical or mathematical truth; but we can create a world for us together where these ca be perceived ...
«Any fact need a world where it is possible for it to exist»-- Anonymus Sherlock Holmes reader 🕵️♀️ «All trees dont grow above sand»-- Anonymus botanist Then in "musical", taste there is, acquired and innate;but it is not about taste...It is also about truth ... I think that atmasphere is nearer Rembrandt in his craftmanship than to the mechanical recipe of Sherwin-Williams paint colors...If you do not think so, then it is better to buy a cheap chinese made product, so good it could be, i dont think it will rival atmasphere craftmanship in class d or in tubes design ...
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@jpwarren58 Yeah, sometimes we engineering types do that. It probably helps to correlate engineering to the rules of human hearing, combined with actually playing real instruments. Some engineers do this and others are only by the book. What I'm saying is that you can design for good specs or design to best honor the rules of human hearing. SET guys know what I'm talking about, although personally I think SETs fall short of the mark. |
@mahgister : First the OP is about musical and not musicality and seconddddddd you have a misunderstood that I don't accept " psychoaoutics: what I said is that all is included and lives in the Amygdala of all human beings through our life learning concious and inconcious and informed or uniformed.
R. |
What means the adjective "musical" and what is musicality are related... You cannot separate them pointing to the amygdala... It is preposterous and not even wrong ...Even acoustician use their amygdala for sure ... In "musical" perception taste there is indeed , acquired or innate, but it is not about mere taste and never had been, it is about acoustics parameters too... The density of air or water is an acoustic parameter with which we can put the conditions of a not so musical experience or a better one (with or/and without the quotation marlk for the word musical )... Add the heart to the amygdala 😉...It will not change the fact that the experience of sound can be and must be simultaneously an acoustically "musical" experience as well as a simple musical experience ... it will not change the fact that a designer can add "musicality" to our musical experience when in his design he incorporate and take into account psychoacoustics universal facts about human hearings and tastes innate or acquired ( not only harmonics facts but for example facts about the way human ears interpreat non linearly in his own time domain the information pertaining to the treshold between frequencies and linear time ). The amygdala existence does not contradict the fact that a designer can use psychoacoustics facts to increase the "musical" acoustic experience coming from his design in a way to improve the experience of music ... Taste there is for sure, but it is not about mere taste here ... Why are you so hell bent to gain a point against a common place fact: acoustics is not taste but include subjective taste as starting point with universal neurophisiological facts about hearing adding amygdala will not change that ... More "musical" experience is not essentially and only about taste, it is about the link between musical concepts and acoustic concepts in a room and in the BODY and with the BODY and the room ( amygdala included) ... Nobody can negate that an acoustician as a human being with a specifically charged amygdala by his own sound learning history can also study statistically all other owners of amygdala and doing so he can establish laws and principles about what is the "musical" optimum of an acoustic and musical experience in a great Hall or in a small room with a playback system, using atmasphere amplifier design or any other ...He will decide which appear more "musical" to him with not only with his emotions in his amygdala but with his objective knowledge in his conscious brain too ... Nothing will stop another acoustician to make a new statistical study here to reach more refined conclusion about "musical" perception and musical perception ... Taste is a always a starting point ,our taste must be educated for an always more "musical" and more musical experience ... We may explore music with our taste or we may explore ourself with music and sound without our taste limitations and without our preferences as a set of experiments and then opening more windows about what is music and what is "musical" not only for us but for all ( musical anthropologist do so and has done it changing even classical music composition )... Psychoacoustics explore also all musical productions of all cultures... Tastes does not define what is "musical" and what is not "musical" at last and at the end ...Human creativity pushing the limits did so with the human active producing sound body/brain with an amygdala inside😊 and with science never without it ...
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Music is processed in the amygdala. But if the brain detects something wrong (speed, distortion, tonal balance and the like) then there is a tipping point where the processing is transferred to the cerebral cortex. At this point a lot of the emotional impact is lost. When you are auditioning cables or comparing two audio products, the cerebral cortex is where the music is being processed. The goal of the designer is to keep the musical processing in the limibic system (amygdala) so as to have the most impact on the listener. To do this, the equipment has to be designed to honor and obey the human hearing rules. For example, the ear uses the higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure and also assigns tonality to all harmonics in the same way as it does for musical instruments. So if an amplifier has higher ordered content that isn't masked somehow (the signal cannot do it) then the amp will sound harsh and bright (due to the ear's assignment of the harmonics) and the processing will likely not be in the limbic system. There are a good number of similar examples- its like negotiating a minefield for success. But if the designer understands the hearing perceptual rules then they can be applied to the design (engineering). |
That’s not consistent with the science I’ve seen. Work done by Daniel J. Levitin shows, "Musical activity involves nearly every region of the brain ... and nearly every neural subsystem." |
for sure Levitin is right but, Musical activity involve all the body not only the neural system... And consciousness can react to something that appear disruptive or disturbing as non musical and also non "musical" ... For example a British amateur of Puccini encountering what may appear to him , uneducated, "savage" didgeridoo music from Australia...Judgement is related to emotion and the amygdala too and to all the body history... But the goal of human journey is the emergence of a larger consciousness from the already existing one through investigation and the crossing of our unconscious trends ... In a more trivial way we can improve our musical and sound experience with a better knowledge , learning how to put our taste aside for a moment ... In a more trivial way creating a good system /room playback ask for way more than "tastes" ...Psychoacoustics concepts and music concepts can do the job especially if the designer use them too and incorporate them in his design ... As atmasphere in his design or Dr. Choueiri in his own had done ... And as Dr. Rudolf Gorike did it with his AKG headphone K240 and K340 which i am honored to own not because of my mere taste ( i did not like them right out of the box) but because the learning experience of this acoustically designed headphone with a grid of passively tuned resonators improve all my "musical" and musical experiences now ... ...To appreciate something we must learn how and why to use it , the amygdala reaction is not enough but nobody can do without his amigdala for sure ... |
@atmasphere: @cleeds is rigth and you are wrong. You need to read complete the link I posted and some of its references at the end of that link. You need to learn and yes I'm still learning and try to do it every single day.
@mahgister , enough with you . Btw, the Brain neural structures are whom handle all our body that makes that any kind of stimulus, musical or not, involve the whole or part body. The neural structure is in command. You are wrong too.
R. |
Saying without explaining anything that i am wrong is a joke not an opinion... In the definition of the adjective "musical", taste there is for sure; but at the end it is not about taste ...It is more than taste, it is learned knowledge shared with all other humans as do any acoustician and musician or designer going toward a better understanding... Taste dont progress, they only can be educated by knowledge and relativized ... The perception of musicality and of what is more "musical" or less must be learned out of our uneducated tastes and sometimes in spite of them ... A perception is not a taste ...Even if this perception can be judged positively or negatively ... "Musical" is a perception BEFORE being a taste and it stay a perception AFTER being adopted as a taste or not ... But there is between taste and amygadala ( emotions) and perception and concept a dynamical relation called knowledge ...When we are at peace with our perceptions because our emotions dont oppose them , we are in a "musical" state of relaxation ...This state is a state before and after we taste it as good ... Relaxation can be objectively controlled and induced in the body by meditation, in the same way a "musical" experience can be created and controlled and induced from a system/room/body in the mind , we can learn how to do it by setting the right conditions and parameters ... All this dont contradict the common place fact that this relaxed state is our taste too because we like it ... There is no contradiction between heart and mind in any relaxed or contemplative state... This is why music as silence are musical states of peace ...We can understand and create peace as taught Christ the greatest acoustician ... 😊 Enough my point is made...
Merry christmas to you and to your family ... 🎄
😊
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Work done by Daniel J. Levitin shows, "Musical activity involves nearly every region of the brain ... and nearly every neural subsystem." @cleeds This is correct, and even more so when you're playing an instrument as opposed to simply listening to music. However the limbic system plays a major role; I had things boiled down a bit too much... |
IMO, the term more musical refers to the overall presentation of a given work. The pacing, smoothness, dynamics, harmonics etc. - everything one would hear with live music. Some amplifiers may sound very quiet with no distortion, but they lack the "soul" of live music...very analytical. Other amps sound very warm and overly smooth and veiled. It is a rare amplifier or piece of audio gear that balances the extreme to find the nirvana which is "musical".
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Absolutely. Like quite a few of the adjectives and adverbs "we" use to describe the sound we hear. Back in '99 I found a dealer who had a used SLP90 and I took it home to audition in place of the B&K digital HT preamp I had in front of a couple of ARC VTM120s . . . something about what it did for the sound I was hearing grabbed me immediately and grabbed me hard, but I was, and still am, unable to articulate in words what it was. "More musical" is honestly the best that I, personally, can come up with. |
The term "musical" cannot be defined as an opinion... "musicality" is a concept defined with parameters under controls in experiments analysing statistical set of subjective perceptions classed in different categories.. After this set of experiments, we can using various concepts pertaining to acoustics have an idea about what will be experienced as musical by most people and what will not be so perceived ... I modified my own speakers according to acoustic principles not according to my taste... ( even if my speakers before my modifications were not my "taste" at all )
read here as an example how is created with acoustic analysis : the MDQAS algorythm... This does not means that the evaluation of what is "musical" is not the prerogative of the human subject, it means that we are all more similar which one another than different in relation with what will appear as "musical" in Acoustics...The acoustician even know why this is so for the human ears/brain ...
Now it is the same in architectural acoustics, which is an art based science existing for millenias... For millenias from caveman building room in the rock to experiment sacred sound and singing to monasteries and Church to great Hall, any acoustician know what could be a "musical" room and what cannot ever be a musical room ...... The only one here who dont know what means objectively the "musical" concept and acoustic experience is the passive consumers in awe in front of always costlier proposed gear and who says picking one of them almost by chance : "it is my taste , i pick it and it is the more musical FOR ME " This customers wrote here that musicality is a taste and can only be defined by variation and relativity, then negating all psychoacoustics experience assembled in a science for millenias... The Greek hemispheric theater had a stupendous acoustic, and it was the result of "science" and of the art of the architect-priest ....It was not the result of taste ... I hope some will get it ... 😊 Audio experience is not about "taste" but about the way we set hundred of objective parameters right especially acoustical one ... For sure prefering a horn speaker or a small box one is a questions of specific needs more than specific taste even if taste is implied because horn dont sound as small box speakers, but using this fact to claim, that the concept of "musicality" or what is musical experience , using this fact to claim it is all about taste is complete ignorance of what is acoustics and reflect consumers conditioned mind focussing on gear piece and price tags and justifying their own choice by their taste in a vicious circle ; ignoring then all objective acoustics parameters necessary to OPTIMIZE their choice , horn or small box, nevermind what is their choice(taste) ... ... Audio is based on these optimizing parameters and concepts not on "TASTES" save for sellers marketing practices aiming at the ignorant consumers ...
When we speak about "musicality" , taste there is yes for sure , but it is not about taste...
«When i spoke about love i dont speak about my taste for my wife »-- Groucho Marx🤓 |
So tell me which/who is more musical: Megadeath, AC/DC, Waylon Jennings, Pink Floyd, Cowboy Junkies, Maria Muldaur, Led Zeppelin, Suzanne Vega, Knickelback, Warren Zevon, Fritz Reiner and the Chigago Symphony Orchestra, Taylor Swift, The Moody Blues Threshold of A Dream LP, The Moody Blues Days Of The Future Past SACD, Ten Inch Nails performing "Hurt", Johnny Cash covering "Hurt", Johnny Paycheck, Linda Ronstadt with The Stone Ponys, Linda Ronstadt without the Stone Ponys, Diana Krall covering "Desperado, Linda Ronstadt covering "Desperado", Catie Curtis, Charlie Manson’s "Charlie’s Good Time Gospel Hour", Johnny Cash "Live at San Quentin", Johnny Cash’s in studio recording of "Ring Of Fire", The Beach Boys, Willie Nelson with The Highway Men, Willie Nelson solo, Taylor Swift, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s first LP, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s second LP, or Bread? |
how old are you ? You conflate here and confuse taste in musical choices and what is the concept of musicality ... You confuse a specific music choice with acoustic... Did i must repeat my post above in one sentence because you dont seem to understand : taste there is yes BUT IT IS NOT ABOUT TASTE ... I will not go further ... 😊 By the way the fact that i listen almost nobody on your list had no relation with the objective parameters at play for any kind of speakers in a specific room and the optimization process of this speakers/room relation with a specific Ears/brain ... No matter who is the pianist in a room or through the speakers, acoustic will not change ... Do you get it ? Incredible.... 😊 Will you repeat your taste mantra with a list of names , with no argument at all only to have the last word, or perhaps you dont even understand this simple distinction between a subjective choice and the objective factors which are at play when we speak about "musicality" ?
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But this, and what followed it, was all stream of consciousness gobble-de-gook. |
. . . Mirriam Webster lists
as one of their definitions for "musical.". Is Mirriam Webster wrong?
Since you tossed about the word "musicality," this is how Mirriam Webster defines that:
(And, btw, it is too late to edit, but sorry about the typo: that should have been "Nine Inch Nails performing Hurt," not "Ten Inch Nails."
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We’ve been getting nice reviews on our products for decades now. ’Musical’ is a word easily applied. So I have concluded that a benign distortion character is paramount to equipment being musical and the evidence seems to support that. What people choose to play on that equipment is a different matter- some of which some people might regard as musical while others might not. So the topic, IMO, is bit too broad in the context of this thread. I’ve only been posting about equipment and how that can be musical, while others have been considering actual music and the way taste might affect your appreciation of it.
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Some Mirriam Webster definitions of "music"
If one accepts any of those definitions of "music," it sure seems as if opinion and taste enter in to the equation.
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I already said : TASTE THERE IS. but musicality is not about INDIVIDUAL taste but about a collective acoustic experience and knowledge ... You dont get it ? It seems you dont get it... It seems your are unable to understand that your point is empty of content : Using the dictionary definition about harmonious and euphony only goes further in my direction : acoustic ... To be "pleasing to the ears" which is the definition of euphony , is not a definition concerning individual taste but collective humanity ...It is a culturally biased definition for sure, culturally biased ; but nevermind these biases are easy to overcome by any attentive listener, euphony ask for optimal acoustic conditions to be experienced as such...A talented and trained playing musician in a good acoustic room sound euphonic , it is not a taste question ... Do you get it ? But like a rabbit using a dictionary instead of thinking you circle around your own tail ... Acoustic has nothing to do with INDIVIDUAL taste or about the idiosyncrasies of a single perceiving subject , acoustic parameters were created by studies or ALL humankind specific abilities... The fact that some with a boom box on their back revendicate this a "musical" will not transform some music in a "musical" event even if some "taste" it with delight ... It is useless to argue more ... You dont want to understand , your "taste" is all you have , keep it ...
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You need more thinking here ... I dont contradict the dictionary... Everybody who read my post can see it .. 😊 I contradict you simplistic appeal to the dictionary as the ONLY means to define musicality... For sure musical is a question of taste ... It is a common place fact my friend ... But musical is ALSO an acoustic specific concept ... A dictionary dont replace acoustic book ..
By the way speaking of my "word salad" have you listened the acoustician in the video i suggested to you speaking about how to evaluate "musical" experience, by analysing the experiences cumulated of all people and doing so define in a better way what is "musicality " ? is it a word salad too ?
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You are right it is better to discuss in the right thread... My mistake ... 😁 Now if i read your post :
You dont seems to understand that OBJECTIVE parameters and SUBJECTIVE perceptions are analysed in psychoacoustics experiments ... Then "musical" as a psychoacoustics facts , because it is psychoacoustics the field who studies "musicality" , musical is described by the ACOUSTICIAN you called a " Quack" to correlate to Timbre perception factors, to distortion perception factors and to Immersiveness perception factors... Nothing here contradict the definition of "musical" as euphonic and harmonious in the Webster Merriam as perceived by every INDIVIDUAL subject in his own way ... Acousticians , not real quack , study the general characteristic of "musical" in a population , then isolating the main factors creating it for ALL HUMANS in general , in spite of their difference ... it is precisely why the Merriam DONT define "musical" as a purely incomprehensible experience for each individual with no relation to one another because each one had his own taste ... Do you get it ? The Merriam define "musical" as harmonious and euphonic experience as HISTORY taught it because thousand of years of successive musicians and acoustician define the territory with experiment and knowledge of what is "musical" experience in music history as in acoustics architecture and applications .. Do you get it ? Is the acoustician and scientist in my video a "quack" as you accuse him and me to be one or is it you instead ? the reader of these posts will decide ... |
By the way immatthewj i succeed two times to create a satisfying audio system in two different rooms ... And with an headphone TOP system ... How? No sorry it was not guided by my mere taste for a branded name piece of marketing gear ... "musical" is not merely about my taste about sound or about my HEARING as individual at some point in time ... Why ? Because my hearing experience has changed a lot when i experimented and studied acoustics in my dedicated room ... My taste for and about sound now are no more the same as 10 years ago ...i learned how to create the sound on all new levels and aspects unknown to me before ...This is why ... Even my headphones and speakers modifications were not guided by my mere "taste" but by my learning about acoustic concept as Helmholtz resonators among other concepts or immersiveness or timbre , and the way to modify them in a system/room .. Then "musical" as harmonious and euphonic, was a result of my LEARNING JOURNEY not from my taste for the gear pieces of some company ... We must learn how to hear and listen , sorry for your innate taste, mine had been put in an evolutive journey by studying ... By the way dont come back here saying that i claim that all pieces of gear are the same nevermind their price ... I perfectly know why my actual low cost speakers cannot be satisfying as could be a High end maximal acoustic satisfaction with speakers like my past TOP Tannoy dual concentric which were on another level Then my actual low cost speakers can only be a minimal acoustic satisfaction ... The problem is i never really experience my Tannoy at their real potential BECAUSE i was ignorant of acoustics and i never used them the right way for 40 years , nevermind my taste here .....Do you get it ? In "musical" perception , Taste there is, but it is not so much about taste but about TRAINED knowledge in music as in acoustics ... And even if a piece of well chosen gear matter for sure ( i just changed for a better cable ) the essential of an experience descriptible as "musical" is related to hundred of parameters , electrical, mechanical and acoustical one , NOT mere TASTE ...Sorry you must STUDY ...gear bragging taste is not enough ......
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You obviously took different history courses than I did. |
I did not wrote history... 😊 Before the Edison and Charles Cros gramophon invention at the same year, euphony and harmonious was refering to the sound of music well played or sang in well realized acoustic architecture location ... This adjectives then refer , to acoustics parameters in some location with very well trained musicians... The word "musical" as an adjective to qualify a sound perception as harmonious and euphonic refer as well to acoustic as music itself together and this adjective predate Edison invention and then is older than any gear system ... Then when we qualify the sound impression of any pieces of gear for specific trained ears in some acoustic room "musical" it refer to an acoustic impression and a musical impression together when the gear piece under test listening do not impede the awaiting results pertaining to what is an harmonious and euphonic perception in some specific acoustic conditions for the AVERAGE human ears ... Many speakers are tested by the designer in anechoic room to verify their potential musicality by testing their frequencies response but it can be done in normal room with the necessary equipment ...Anyway acoustics parameters of the room must be known.... Any designer know that speakers /room will give an impression different if we change the room materials acoustic content, geometry, topology and dimensions etc ... Then acoustics parameters knowledge are important for the definition of a "musically" subjective well accepted experience for most human subjects... The gear choice matter for sure ... I just bought a tube preamplifier for my active speakers and the improvement is amazing... But no gear change can repair or compensate acoustics, in reverse no acoustic change will compensate or redeem a bad gear choice... When our gear synergy and choices are done , no upgrade of a single piece of gear will compare to room acoustic parameters well done ... The only exception will be going from a very bad cheap piece of gear to a top very high cost one as for speakers choice ... No room acoustics can redeem a bad speaker or very low cost one compared to a TOP one... In reverse TOP speakers in a living room, even a good room , will not sound as the same speakers in a carefully dedicated room ... There is a difference between any speakers at any price giving his minimal working sound quality and the same speakers giving his maximal sound quality... The difference will be room dependant generally more than from change of comparable amplifiers choices or dac choices near the same price bracket ... Acoustics is the more underestimated factor ... But even cables matter, i just change one of mine from cheap to better .. 😊 the most important factors when the gear choice and minimal synergy is reached are the electrical noise floor embeddings controls, the mechanical vibration/resionance controls and the essential acoustic parameters controls...Without these three controls under your hand , any upgrade will be premature and perhaps useless...
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Sure, @atmasphere , but what is meant by "more musical"? |
@mahgister you continually use words like "impression" and "perception" and "well." "Impressions" describe subjective experiences, "perceptions" describe subjective experiences, and what some consider "well" others do not, so "well" is also subjective. OP asked "what is meant by more musical"? Musical = pertaining to music, as in a musical instrument such as the cornet. Unless the term music is also subjective, that definition is not subjective. When a reviewer writes that "a certain piece of gear is more musical," I would assume that the reviewer means that the gear produces music "well" and that the experience is listening to something "having the pleasing harmonious qualities of music." However, what pleases some does not please others and what some find harmonious others do not. I have nothing at all against Cher Bono or her heritage--however I find nothing harmonious or pleasing about her nasal catterwalling in a monotone about being a half breed. I would say the same about the thrash-metal sound of the band Mega-Death. My perception or impression of both is that neither meets the criteria of being very "musical." But there are a lot of people who would argue that I am wrong about both (however, it wouldn't be the same group of people that would argue that the sound of Cher is musical that would also argue that thrash-metal is musical).
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"More musical" means an upgrade of gear or /and upgrade of room acoustics... If you own atmasphere top amplifier for example which is designed in account of some psychoacoustics facts, then you may try to upgrade instead of his already TOP amplifier a low cost speakers to a better one , but if your speakers are relatively good already BEFORE upgrading, it is better to improve the room ... One piece of Gear upgrade at some level of price toward another gear piece in a similar price scale will not compare generally to the huge impact of room dedicated acoustics at all ... What you seem to MISS IS that anything , any piece of gear will sound in synergy with all the other piece of gear but IN A DIFFERENT WAY in a different room ...The room acoustic will make a HUGE difference on speakers impressions... If the room is bad, or if it is not bad but a simple living room or if it is a dedicated tailor made room acoustically controlled for a specific pair of speakers then you have here 3 cases of two increase in .SQ .. A bad room versus a good room with no acoustic control or/and treatment , and now going from a good room without any acoustic optimization to a dedicated acoustically controlled room ... Most gear upgrade will not compare to that if you already own a synergetical system already then upgrading anything is way less impactful than upgrading the room ... Now dont believe any reviewer when they say that a piece of gear is " more musical "... It is relative not only to the design of the piece of gear but also to the synbergy with the other gear pieces but also to the room acoustics ... There is too much factors at play here to believe one reviewer... I believe atmasphere because he knows psychoacoustic facts about human hearing which he use in his design to improve it and make it more musical...Then the only way to make the amplifier of atamasphere "more musical" if your sperakers are on the same level is giving to the system a dedicated acoustic room the best as possible in your house ... |
Seriously??? That is what you think the definition of "more musical" is?? A simple "upgrade of gear"??? And if the gear upgrade doesn't work and the result actually sounds like hammered sh!t, then is it still "more musical"? At least you were finally able to provide a concise definition. I'll give you that anyway. |
i spoke in my last post about an answer to your question : what are all the " more musical" OPTIONS ... What means more "musical" when a reviewer spoke about a piece of gear... I dont spoke in this last posts as in my other posts here about the acoustic parameters defining the concept of "musical" in acoustic ... ( timbre- distortion- immersiveness- spatial qualities) What control the impression of "musicality" we had in front of a system is not only gear change but room acoustic controls... For example the location of a listener in a room is a parameter of acoustic control etc... There is a huge number of parameters , dimension , geometry, topology, acoustic content ( glass or wood or rug etc) , surface ratio of reflection and absorption and diffusion and their balance , reverberation time , HTRF and inner ears parameters, pressure zones distribution , speakers characteristics, etc...All these parameters are used to CONTROL the timbre impression and the immersiveness by the right ratio between the sound source dimensions and the listener location, and finally the spatial dimensions between all sound sources ...
For example i just change a bad cable for a better one, but this small audible change dont compare to room acoustics change... Even most change in amplification or even with speakers change will not exceed huge impact of the acoustics room controls ... But we cannot replace a bad amplifier with room acoustic control nor a bad cable or a bad dac by a new room ... 😊
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None of that (above in your last post) answers OP's question: "what is meant by ’more musical’" However, when you typed that
That was at least an answer to OP’s question. It was an answer that nearly had me rolling on the floor with laughter, but at least it was an answer. |
There is only one way to improve musicality... It is to EXPERIMENT with the relation between the gear and the room acoustic... do you get it ? Now if you want to know with WORDS what is musical... Try to read poetry ... Acoustics science define "musical" in big books about all acoustic parameters and conceptual aspect of it ... Timbre, immersiveness, and spatial qualities ... Try an acoustician and read it ... I suggest Dr. Edgar Choueiri... And an advice: dont say to someone reading his post that you roll in laughters... The idiot is not always the dude who dont laugh ...
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I have no doubt about all of that, but the problem is, that does not answer OP’s question: "what is meant by more musical?"
So when OP asks "what is meant by more musical?" this is NOW what your answer is? You are no longer saying that "more musical" means to buy an Atmasphere amp? What if OP has read some poetry but finds that defining a good poem versus a bad poem is a subjective process as well? What if OP enjoys reading but finds short fiction to be a preferable genre (to him or her) than poetry? Does this mean that OP can never know what musical is?
Okay, I’ve provided two definitions, one of which was relatively concise and concrete and the other which was concise but subjective . . . you have yet to provide ANY definition of "musical", except for a lot of meaningless word soup. Give me a concise definition of musical in 25 to 50 words if you can. And if you try and you find that "having the pleasing harmonious qualities of music" is the best you can come up with, I am okay with that. Then we can go down the "what is music?" rabbit hole.
Okay, expand your definition to 100 words and explain how those properties define musical and I will probably ask you once again if, for an example, the group Mega Death is musical.
Meaning that you cannot explain what "musical" means?
How about Dr. Seuss?
But in all seriousness, @mahgister , OP asks "what is meant by more musical" and you answer that an "upgrade in gear or acoustics" is the definition he is searching for . . . that IS funny! |
@immatthewj That which is better able to sound like real music. |
"musical" cannot be put in words except by using synonyms as in the Merriam Webster...
"musical" can be defined in acoustic factors as these factors can be controlled in a room by some ears/brain EXPERIMENTING ...
Experimenting what ?
We know for example that the transients are important in the timbre "musical" judgement by a listener...
To improve the transients it is possible for example to play with the room ratio between absorption, reflective and diffusive surface ...
To give another example, imaging will be greatly improve by the listener location and the speakers location and the wise use of the lateral reflections at the right timing ...
Etc....
I can go on with reading you 10 acoustic articles...
Or as any idiot i can ask forever a definition of musical in words that dont exist , because "musical" being an acoustic concept suppose some ears/brain and a pair of hands modifying the room acoustic parameters to his liking and after studying the concepts of timbre , immersiveness and spatial qualities in such a way and enough then he had learn what to do instead of changing cables and gear without end...
Then you will understand what is a "musical" timbre perception by being able to perceive any of his aspects ...
For timbre there is 5 aspects to play with.... You cannot put this understanding and set of experiments with specific gear in a specific room in few words...You must experiment with acoustic concepts... Even if i paste any text acoustics if you dont play with the parameters associated with these concepts you will not understand ... Acoustics is an APPLIED knowledge not words and not even equations because hearing is too complex ...
Do you get it ?
Or will you roll in laughters ?
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Well, that may be getting some where. However, in that case, "more musical" may differ depending upon one's musical tastes. If one was a thrash-metal fan, one might find different equipment "more musical" than if one was a fan of chamber music. If one was a fan of the latter, one might find a 12 wpc SET amp and some high efficiency speakers to be "more musical." If one bought that combination to jam out on Mega Death, one would probably be disappointed. A massive SS amp with some huge JBLs might be "more musical" in that application given your definition. Personally, I am good with the "having the pleasing harmonious qualities of music" definition, but as I have typed before: what pleases some does not please all, and therefore not everyone defines "more musical" the same way. |
Musical acoustics or music acoustics is a multidisciplinary field that combines knowledge from physics,[1][2][3] psychophysics,[4] organology[5] (classification of the instruments), physiology,[6] music theory,[7] ethnomusicology,[8] signal processing and instrument building,[9] among other disciplines. As a branch of acoustics, it is concerned with researching and describing the physics of music – how sounds are employed to make music. Examples of areas of study are the function of musical instruments, the human voice (the physics of speech and singing), computer analysis of melody, and in the clinical use of music in music therapy. The pioneer of music acoustics was Hermann von Helmholtz, a German polymath of the 19th century who was an influential physician, physicist, physiologist, musician, mathematician and philosopher. His book On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music[7] is a revolutionary compendium of several studies and approaches that provided a complete new perspective to music theory, musical performance, music psychology and the physical behaviour of musical instruments. |
A good system an OPTIMAL system cannot be only good for one style of music... This is completely beside acoustic understanding of what is a "musical sound" ... Buy some beats headphone or a boom box it will do ...No need of acoustics for you ... 😊
And by the way in a top acoustic Hall everyone know it sound "musical" even a heavy metal group recording there ...Musical taste had nothing to do with "musical" qualities in acoustics experience by the way ... And every one listening mike lavigne room/system say it sound "musical" ... No one claim that for his taste his boom box sound better ... As a dog racing his tail go on with your definition of musical in relation with one individual taste: your own ... It will be enough for you brain ... And Go on laughing at people here ...
myself my own taste in sound GROWS in the last 12 years with my acoustic knowledge and experiments ... We must LEARN how to hear exactly as you must grow our brain all our life ...
😊
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Almost any word can be used as a synonym for another word. Including the words you have been using. Sorry, but that is just what language has evolved to.
Fine. But you have yet to provide a coherent definition of what is more musical. "Buy an Atmasphere amp is the most concise thing I've read by you so far.
Okay, I'll give you points for "improved transients." If one piece of gear compared to another piece of gear produces "improved transients" that piece of gear may meet some of the definitions of "more musical." However, some musicians probably are also able to produce music with transients that are better than the transients than other musicians can. If that's the case, "more musical" may go beyond just gear and room acoustics?
I'll give you points for that also. Better imaging should be "more musical." I have never argued that the room and the placement of speakers in the room was not important to imaging. But I'd also say that the most noticeable improvement in my last upgrade (the preamp) was definition and imaging. And yes, I admit that I did play around with speaker placement and adding rugs to tweak that.
Well, actually it appears that words do exist. But if words didn't exist, then it would be up to everyone what their own feelings about "more musical" is. And then it would be subjective.
So I assume you are talking about accurate timbre, not timbre that is pleasing?
That doesn't tell the OP what the answer to his question is.
You are saying "more musical" means improved transients and imaging and more accurate reproduction of timbre? Okay . . . that is something solid that OP can hang is hat on. However, as I just replied (somewhere up above) to Atmasphere, equipment that one will find "more musical" for one genre may not work for another genre. No, I am ot laughing . . . this time around you did not answer OP's question by saying that the definition of "more musical" is equipment and room acoustics upgrades. But that was funny.
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Musical acoustics or music acoustics is a multidisciplinary field that combines knowledge from physics,[1][2][3] psychophysics,[4] organology[5] (classification of the instruments), physiology,[6] music theory,[7] ethnomusicology,[8] signal processing and instrument building,[9] among other disciplines. As a branch of acoustics, it is concerned with researching and describing the physics of music – how sounds are employed to make music. Examples of areas of study are the function of musical instruments, the human voice (the physics of speech and singing), computer analysis of melody, and in the clinical use of music in music therapy. The pioneer of music acoustics was Hermann von Helmholtz, a German polymath of the 19th century who was an influential physician, physicist, physiologist, musician, mathematician and philosopher. His book On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music[7] is a revolutionary compendium of several studies and approaches that provided a complete new perspective to music theory, musical performance, music psychology and the physical behaviour of musical instruments. |
You are probably going to get some push back from more than just me on that one. I have never done the SET experience, but I am intrigued. "Goose bump territory" or so I have been told. But years and years and years ago I liked it loud and louder, and given what I know about the thrash metal scene, 14 or 15 wpc wouldn’t sound "more musical" to that crowd. "Beats headphones"? I don’t even know what those are. Boom box? No, 30 years ago I had a rack system, and it was ggod for background, but I really didn’t find it engaging enough to sit in front of for hours and enjoy what I consider a "more musical" experience. But keep it coming . . . I find your attempts at insulting me amusing, although not as hysterically funny as your "buy an Atmasphere amp" definition of "more musical." |
@immatthewj I see this as entirely false. The reason is that no-one has ever documented a way that electronics can favor one genre of music over another. As a result, what makes a system good at classical will also make it good at rock. As you know orchestras can play pretty loud. I play classical, gothic metal, electronia, folk music and the like all on the same systems in my house. They all do all forms equally well. All humans share the human hearing rules. So we all very naturally concoct our musical compositions inside of those rules. So if you measure the energy spectrum of a well recorded metal band you'll find its not all that different from that of a well recorded orchestra at full tilt. I'm not saying that certain instruments are not asked to carry unusual energy for a bit; when that happens its usually not sustained unless the musician is making some sort of point. For example the piccolo in Mancini's Baby Elephant Walk. When I encounter the myth that certain speakers or amps or combinations thereof can favor a certain kind of music, I've found that if I can dig into it, the simple reason for this is the person entertaining that myth hasn't heard everything- not every recording and not every system. The more exposure you have, the more light is cast upon this particular myth; the quicker it dissipates. |
