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?
Well, all music is musical pretty much by definition, eh? Or not.
Musical is a totally subjective term. Practically, it means people like what they hear.
Distortion is the key.
Some people like no or low distortion and hear that as more "musical". Low distortion is a proper objective goal, but "musical" is a subjective term and not the same.
Others may find the presence of certain types of harmonic distortion that does not bother the ears more "musical" because it sounds better or right to them. That’s fine....it’s a totally subjective determination.
If you read up on tube amps you will find that they tend to have unique distortion characteristics that many find more "musical", especially with how the human voice and acoustic (as opposed to electronic) instruments sound. Others not so much
On the flip side, electronic amplification and sources are an integral part of a lot of pop(ular) music. The unique distortion characteristics of tube amplification tends to fare less well there, though there are no absolutes. Both tube and SS amps are capable of producing similar very high quality sound for a cost.
Tube versus SS sound is just one common example where the term "musical" often enters the conversation. All it tells you is what each person prefers ie what their own personal opinion is of what sounds good or not.
The term musical refers primarily to rhythm and pace. As one learns what different terms mean starting as a novice… the real obvious stuff is treble, bass… imaging, microdetails, grain,… etc… one generally learns down a path of more subtle characteristics.
Rhythm and pace is like noice floor. It is profound but not something easy to put your minds eye on. It is the core musical connection… the emotional connection. It is what makes you want to tap your foot or in extreme circumstances get up and dance. The emotional connection to the beat… well rhythm. It seldom happens without midrange bloom… but it can… midrange bloom is the fully nuanced and laid out to hear midrange really helps to close your eyes and get sucked into the music.
It took me decades to actually be able to put my finger on it instantly. I can now, with no problem and gauge how good. Long ago there was a tendency for equipment that had great Rhythm and Pace to lack detail (tubed stuff is much more likely to have great rhythm and pace). This is not true now. Over the last decade Pass amps have gotten much better for instance.
The opposite is dry and analytical. You sit and appreciate all the details and slam, the imaging, but after 45 minutes you get bored. Your body has no desire to move with the music.
I recently auditioned three integrated amps, a Luxman, Pass, and Audio Research ($10K each except the the ARC $6K). The Luxman was high on details… very trebly offset by punchy bass… great transparency… completely devoid of rhythm and pace. The Pass, real sounding treble, nice round bass and a core that made me tap my foot and move in the chair. Audio Research, my eyes instantly closed and I was completely engulfed in the music (not the details and sound… the music… the desire to more and be emotionally pulled by it. That is great rhythm and pace.
I’m going to add to what @mapmanhas pointed out. Musicality has everything to do with how the amp makes distortion. The main differences we hear between amps, their ’sonic signature’ is in fact their distortion.
To be musical, that distortion has to be benign to the human ear. The only harmonics that qualify in that way are the 2nd and 3rd.
Higher ordered harmonics, the 5th and above, are sensed by the ear and interpreted typically as harshness and brightness. In musical instruments, the higher orders are sculpted by the instrument maker as the tone colors of that instrument. IOW distortion is sensed by the ear in the same way that the ear hears tonality in musical instruments.
Fortunately, if the 2nd and 3rd harmonics are high enough in amplitude compared to succeeding harmonics, the latter can be masked. The result is even though the higher orders are present, the presentation can be smooth and detailed, which is to say ’musical’. Tube amplifiers are very good at this sort of thing, which has kept them going the last 70 years. Solid state has been challenged by this issue because while they typically make less of the higher orders, their higher orders are not masked.
The ear is keenly sensitive to the higher ordered harmonics because it uses them to sense how loud sounds are. The ear has over 120dB range and frankly, a lot of solid state amp designers didn’t take that bit into account, so unmasked higher ordered harmonics will cause the amp to be harsh and bright; i.e. not so musical.
This is a bit of a nutshell description of the issue.
some amps are about the sound; meaning you are more aware of pieces of the sound....bass.....detail.....high frequencies.....maybe impact and aggressive beat. it might sound very clean and even scrubbed a little. note decay can be clipped. certain electronic music is complimented by this presentation. these amps strangle the music to a degree. clinical.
a few amps are about the event, the intensions and artistry of the performers, the vibe of the venue, and immersion into the rich tone and textures of the nuance and feeling of the musical energy. the beat might not be as impactful, but it carries you along more into the essence. these amps get out of the way of the music. musical.
there is more to these things than amplifiers, there is the context of the speakers, room and system....and the type of music and quality of the source.
but amps do play a big role. this is not a tube<->solid state thing. but it is related to simplicity of circuitry and keeping the processing to a minimum. zero negative feedback helps. efficient speakers help. a great first watt helps. the music can’t be held back.
some amps can be musical, but too colored to be effective with all types or scales of music. but that might your preference. personally i want an amp to sound like music, and not have any sameness of coloration i have to listen through.
I have resisted the term, because whatever someone prefers in the character of their system is going to be the one which draws them into the music, no?
If that’s true -- and I cannot see how that can be disputed -- then every system which someone likes is "musical."
What if someone’s ear does not care about the kind of distortion @atmasphere identifies with musicality? Would we say their use of the term "musical" is incorrect? This would be tantamount to saying that "good food is spicy food" and then for anyone who demurs, they like "not-good" food. Would we say that some people like "not-musical" amplifiers?
That said, I do see that some here are trying to help associate the word "musical" with its most frequently used associations -- lexicography, if you will. It's "rhythm and pace" or "2nd and 3rd order harmonics," etc. Maybe that's useful. I'd still expect a lot of people to just use the word to mean other things, and not really be incorrect in their usage. This makes the word of suspect usefulness.
What if someone’s ear does not care about the kind of distortion @atmasphere identifies with musicality? Would we say their use of the term "musical" is incorrect? This would be tantamount to saying that "good food is spicy food" and then for anyone who demurs, they like "not-good" food. Would we say that some people like "not-musical" amplifiers?
@hilde45No, what I described is based on rules of human perception, which encompasses all people. This is the same reason that deciBels are used, why humans are thought to have a range of 20Hz to 20KHz and so on.
What you are describing is 'taste'. I was not. If amps are not musical, no-one likes them. They might tolerate them; that's different. You can tolerate something but be annoyed by it at the same time.
I have always felt this term to be equivalent to "emotionally engaging" and standing in contrast to analytical or accurate.
Does it pull me in and make me want to listen to the music and actively participate, or am I presented with a laboratory in which only the truth is heard?
Does it pull me in and make me want to listen to the music and actively participate, or am I presented with a laboratory in which only the truth is heard?
Personally, I think a system is more "musical" when more recordings of music one actually cares about can be enjoyed their fullest. Then the system for playing the recordings is working well and maximizing its value. Again, what one enjoys is a very subjective thing and the details will surely vary to some degree for each.
"Musical" has not as much to do with taste as with acoustics concepts ( not mere room acoustic by the way but acoustics as science) ...
If we use the word in acoustics where the adjective "musical" can be studied by experiments and described in acoustic concepts : as timbre, transients, dynamic, immersiveness etc ...
It is why people prefered tube amplifiers for years over S.S. because of this objective masking of higher harmonics with tubes easier to do than with S.S. in these days as atmasphere said ...It is an acoustics facts ... not a taste ...
But what makes a system "musical" in his experience has too much factors in it as said Mike Lavigne to be reduced to only amplification ...
Vibrations controls for example or electrical house grid control and not only room acoustic play a role ...
The spatial characteristics of the sound play a role not only the timbre experience ... Then because of the crosstalk effect on any stereo system we loose in the musical spatial characteristics of the sound for example ... Dr. Choueiri wrote much about it ...
And even other well less known factors play a role in our experience of "musicality" ...Including our own inner ears structure which is not a taste as an innate way to experience the sound which we can call our "taste"...But it is not a taste , it is more a starting point ...
We must learn not only how to listen but we must learn how to hear all our life ...
I have always felt this term to be equivalent to "emotionally engaging" and standing in contrast to analytical or accurate.
@erik_squiresIMO/IME equipment can be emotionally engaging and accurate at the same time. But not analytical, which IME is usually a way of describing something with low distortion but the distortion it has is higher ordered harmonics and not masked. So it sounds 'analytical' which is to say transparent, but also somewhat bright with a bit of harshness.
Opposing musical to analytical comes from the focus put on the gear design by audiophiles not from acoustics in general ...
"Musical" means in acoustics experience as just said atmosphere : "accurate and engaging at the same time" ...
A system/room is musical or less musical ... If it is analytical too much it comes from a piece of gear not synergetical or badly designed , it does not come from the system/room/ears as an experienced whole ...
No, what I described is based on rules of human perception, which encompasses all people....What you are describing is ’taste’.
I thought when people used the term "musical" it was to make a value judgment about the sound being produced by the amplifier (and speakers), not state a fact which would apply to all perception.
Here’s how I see it.
Some people eat hot peppers and call them spicy. Others say they’re mild. Does chemistry tell us who’s right? Hardly.
Peppers do have a chemical component, Capsicum, that causes them to interact with taste buds and then the brain.
But what can one claim as "objectively true" about this sequence? Some people need only a small amount of capiscum to cause them to call the food "spicy." Others need a lot. Who is right here? The chemical explanation cannot sort it out, because perception always comes to us as interpreted, never raw.
The same situation exists, pari passu, to "musicality." Some people’s taste will hear certain harmonics as pleasing; some not. It depends on taste, preference, circumstance, habituation. No way to disentangle it.
Clearly, you and others have discovered there is a widespread predilection for 2nd and 3rd order harmonics, and there is a predilection for sugar, fat, and salt, too. But all of those preferences could be changed by changes in taste -- and the underlying physics would have no impact at all.
Clearly, you and others have discovered there is a widespread predilection for 2nd and 3rd order harmonics, and there is a predilection for sugar, fat, and salt, too. But all of those preferences could be changed by changes in taste
@hilde45How we see things, and how reality really is are usually two different things.
Emphasis added, to the part that is a false conclusion. The only way for it to be true would be to somehow modify how your ear/brain system detects sound, and we're not there yet- give it a hundred years and we'll see 😉
In the meantime we are stuck with human hearing perceptual rules which are surprisingly consistent from person to person unlike taste buds. That is why, for example, we can use a dB scale on VU meters. Also for example why mp3s were even possible (they rely on the masking principle of the ear). Masking, BTW, is an essential bit of what I mentioned about distortion above.
Its easy to prove with very simple test equipment that the ear uses higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure, and that they are assigned 'harsh and bright' by the ear. This isn't something for debate, its something you learn about in school.
The musical nature of the 2nd harmonic has been known longer than electronics. That higher harmonics are not acceptable in the audio presentation has also been known for a very long time: I refer you to the Radiotron Designer's Guide, 3rd edition, published in the 1930s. Human ears have seen no significant evolution since then, although taste has certainly changed.
Getting what the difference is between hearing and taste is what this is about. Designing something to be musical is all about understanding how the ear perceives sound and not at all about the taste people express.
If you want to talk about the taste people express and relate it to audio design, you'll be participating in one of the larger myths in audio- that of a certain audio product being better at one genre of music than another (the absolute classic example of that being a JBL L-100 being better at rock than anything else, which is simply silly). In reality, there's no known way of designing any audio product to favor a certain genre. If there were, there'd be classes on that topic in colleges and universities.
My definition is simple … and, yes it’s my interpretation.
If you get engrossed in the music such that you don’t think about the sound, clarity, detail, slam, <insert your favorite audiophile adjective>, etc … just the music, that’s musical in my book.
I used to read here on Audiogon about all of the descriptive high-sounding adjectives to describe the sounds coming from a system....’soundstage’, ’layering’, ’decay’, ’imaging’, ’slam’, ’attack’, 'front-to-back', ’height and width’, ’PRAT’, ’air’, ’deeper bass’, ’sweet spot’, etc. .............and in the beginning, I thought it was a bunch of hogwash. But, as I moved up the hifi food chain, all of those adjectives made themselves known and very apparent to me one by one without anyone having to explain it to me. I knew what each one was immediately the first time I heard them. Some of the adjectives upon hearing them the first time was almost like a religious experience....and I kept throwing money at the hobby as faithfully as a religious person pays tithes. In other words, you’ll know it when you hear it...and you’ll miss it when or if it leaves your system.
After all that, I am still unable to explain those adjectives to a nonaudiophile.
....you’ll immediatley know what it is when you hear it.
I will give an example now why a good sound experience has little to do with taste or money and not even with only specific better design quality of a specific component as much useful are a better design and it is ...
I was the owner of pairs of Tannoy gold dual concentric speakers for more than 40 years ...
They are clearly better in design than my actual 100 bucks small active speakers of 4 inches woofer , so good they are ...No comparison in potential good sound experience between a low cost small active speakers and the mythical way better more high end Tannoy ...
it makes no sense to even debate that ... I know it first hand ...
But there is a difference between a better speakers design as the Tannoy when it is not electrically , mechanically and acoustically well embedded because i was ignorant and a less performant speakers two notch under the quality scale, which i modified especially the porthole design , but also now well embedded in the three working dimensions because i am no more so much ignorant ...
...
The best soundfield experience in my life is with these low cost speakers not with the superior Tannoy that i never listened to, unbeknownst to me , in 40 years at their top optimal level anyway because , i was knowing nothing about vibrations/resonance controls, electrical noise/signal ratio level and acoustical control of the room/speakers ...I does not know that a speaker with a porthole is an Helmholtz resonators and that the porthole design MATTER ...Acoustics is not room acoustic which is only a part of it by the way ...
If you think money alone can buy audiophile experience you had many things to learn...Sorry to give you a bad news ... 😊
Price tags and money and taste dont matter as much if they matter at all , as acoustics knowledge and i dont speak only about room acoustic here ...
Learning how to hear matter ...And you dont learn how to hear by purchasing dozen of components as much audiophiles claims here ...
Put you gear taste at rest and read about acoustics ... It is the only thing that help me ...
I dont need to buy the Tannoy back to wrote a conclusion ...😉
I dont need them anyway even if they are better for sure as potential element ...
Even sold used at 2000 bucks at least they are over my wallet and they need a bigger room than the small room and desk i now use anyway ... And my actual sound is obscenely good for the price ...😊
Mechanical,electrical and acoustical control of the system/room matter as much as the design quality of each components and it had nothing to do with taste ... And good design be it for amplifier or speakers is grounded in acoustics not in taste ... And acoustics is a science not just room applied acoustic...
u should get the Tannoy back, apply learning s … then draw a conclusion ….
I can give another example which is about acoustic tuning of speakers specific damping load and vibrations coupling/decoupling controls importance over " taste" for the gear and as much important as the design quality of the speakers themselves ...
There is no comparison between the sound of a speakers well coupled to the desk/room or floor and the same when it is not well coupled /decoupled and relatively isolated ...
You cannot guess it BEFORE experimenting with the vibrations control ...
It is not taste, it is not the mere design of the speakers alone here which will give the experience of sound quality, it will be the vibrations/resonance control as much as the design of the speakers itself ...
This problem can vary with each speakers designs but is always there ...
No speakers sellers will tell you that you must invest time if not money in this absolutely necessary controls , especially if the speakers are costly ... Sorry ...
Money dont give free lunch, we must invest time to learn how to embed what we own ... The end results is an acoustic experience everybody can appreciate because it does not result from capricious changing taste but from applied knowledge exactly as in the design of an amplifier as explained by atmasphere ...
The fact that a stradivarius sound is better than a cheap violin is a matter of design kowledge about sound experience first not a matter of taste ...
A good meal in any culinary culture is also a question of "informed design " more than a question about taste ... We can appreciate one tradition better than an another, this does not mean that good cooking is a matter of taste ...
People who focus on the gear "taste" forgot that the gear work not in isolation but in an environment and are coupled to another pieces of gear ...
I will buy if i can Atmasphere design because he based them on psycho-acoustics facts not on his mere taste ...
my take on the term musical is when the presented music has a high degree of coherence, fluidity and balance top of bottom, with no particular aspect of the sound calling attention to itself, and thus, allowing a listener to just take in the performance -- and not be at all distracted by anything particularly exciting or bothersome sonically
in effect, what many/most of us who have been at this for a lifetime are looking for... an honest even handed window onto the musical performance we select
Love is when you forgot yourself for the benefit of an other ...
Musicality is when you set all right acoustically ...And "right" is defined by objective factors not only the qualitative design of each component but their synergy and not only their synergy but matter as much the way they are embedded together in a room, well or not . electrically,acoustically and mechanically ... Musicality is a result of balanced factors in these three working dimensions not a "taste" or a mere subjective inclination ...
Acoustician and musician know how to make the sound "musical" ... Some speakers and amplifier designers know too ... Taste exist for sure but is a very limited factor in the mechanical,electrical and acoustical processing of sound and in components design as in the embeddings devices design ...
Meaningless post should had no place in audiophile community . These kind of post means all the same void of thinking , without doubt they had no meaning ...😁
Banning a word concept instead of refering to the specific conditions of his experience is the peak of non sense ...
This is the term that should have no place in audiophile community. It may mean too many things and so in a sense it has no meaning.
I guess it means different things to different listeners. To me it means the amp and/or system it is in produces a sound that is closer to the sound and, more importantly, the soul of real music than to the sound of hi-fi. This may also be attributed to whether the said component has a top-down or bottom-up presentation. Just remember that the music is in the midrange.
I would add "continuousness and coherence" in the sense that an unmusical system can make it sound like the music is being played by musicians who don't quite gel together and can't play "in the pocket".
That's not an exclusive description, however, since I also find etched sounding systems to be unmusical i.e. systems where the components emphasise the leading edge of notes but are harmonically lean or thin. Such systems can be coherent, but tonally, they don't sound real.
Mapman's on it. As I worked through my hobby system that uses a recapped pro audio Crown PS200 to drive a pair ot mellow big baffle Wharfdale Linton 85th Anniversary Heritage speakers and small REL sub (all connected a speaker level with Mogami 3103 cable), the more I reduced distortion on my input chain by improving the DAC, upgrading the interconnect cabling and fiddling with the gain on an unpowered Schiit Sys preamp....the more "musical" the output became!
Those other concepts like imaging and sound stage become more real as the signal cleaned up. Was pretty amazing how much more enjoyable it was without changing the amp or the speakers.
First, I’d like to say that it’s a privilege to exchange ideas with you. I admire your work, your intellect, and your ability to express ideas clearly.
We are at an impasse which is well known in philosophy -- it is a 2000 year impasse, at least.
Perception is both a process of registration by the brain and interpretation by the mind. Kant argued that nothing is perceived "as it is in reality" because in order to make sense of reality, it must first be taken in and conditioned by our understanding. Even the measurements you’re speaking about are done with human instruments, using human metrics, with patterns which humans notice. Everything measured is also an interpretation. Even what seems solid -- invariant readings, for example -- are only invariant due to human interpretation. Change the scale of the reading, and it becomes invariant, again.
So, it’s all interpretation -- whether one talks in terms of numbers and machine readings, or in terms of more literary sounding descriptions (i.e., "taste").
What engineers and scientists object to about the more "subjective" instances of taste -- which you single out as my "false conclusion" -- is how wildly variable taste is compared to measurements in a lab (whether that’s a neuroscientist’s lab or an audio engineer’s lab). I think that’s a fair judgment, but not for the deep metaphysical reason you’re claiming (namely, one between the "reality" of measurement and the "subjectivity" of taste).
I would agree with you (and science) on this, only: that "taste" outside of the lab is often too wild, too unregulated in procedure, too unstable in judgment to be reliable. That’s fair. Where I disagree is that the scientist/engineer somehow can "anchor" laws of perception in reality in a way that is capable of correcting interpretative judgment. If someone hears a 2nd order harmonic as unpleasant, would they be wrong? No, what we’d say is that some people are not "wired" to enjoy the 2nd harmonic -- just as some people are "wired" to dislike even mildly spicy food.
But I put the word "wired" in quotes because it’s really a misleading (because physicalist) word. It’s not really wiring at all. Rather, there is a complete system of human physiology, habituated expectation, and linguistic training at work, here. These include what seems to be only the "last" node, the listener (or eater). What some scientists get wrong is that the listener doesn’t just receive a stimulus (a 2nd order harmonic) and then have a response (pleasure); rather, every listener approaches a stimulus with previous experiences that condition how the stimulus is received. There is a circuit at work which includes the context, past and present, of the listener. That includes their wants, needs, desires, expectations at the level of meaning and interpretation.
Is there a correlation between 2nd harmonics and the way we measure the brain? Sure. Just as there is between the chemical composition of sugar and the taste buds -- and the sections of the brain which register "sweetness." But preference for sweetness also requires habituation in conduct; one can habituate to dislike sweetness and other "natural" preferences. Often, how one is raised plays a role, here. (Cf. Bordieu on habitus.) The brain is a plastic instrument.
I don’t expect we can settle this on a forum. Libraries are required to address these kinds of debates. Just engaging with you about it -- even though we differ -- is enormously pleasurable to me. But that’s because I’m habituated this way. ;-)
"musical, musicality A personal judgment as to the degree to which reproduced sound resembles live music. Real musical sound is both accurate and euphonic, consonant and dissonant."
Many great posts above that provide great descriptions.
My favorite is "The fact that a Stradivarius sound is better than a cheap violin is a matter of design knowledge about sound experience first not a matter of taste"
The wood is also a major factor in the sound of that violin.
To my ears, musical means how an instrument is reproduced such as piano or the saxophone. Does it sound like the real thing and many people have their own interpretations of what is real to them. Many people hear differently and recordings vary widely so that is a big factor. I want to hear the hammer hit the strings in a piano (the detail) and then I want to hear the wood enclosure of the piano influence the actual note (the tone). That is my personal preference and what I listen for. My ears can always hear what I prefer in any system but not every person I know hears the same way. I can only show them what I hear when I can compare their equipment to what I own. Then they can hear what I hear. At that point, it is up to them to decide what they prefer with their own ears. Some people may call this this "real". I can agree to that but it is also just my preference. I call that the beauty of the sound or musical.
a good sound experience has little to do with taste or money and not even with only specific better design quality of a specific component as much useful are a better design and it is ...
Yes, like many endeavors, high end audio is driven by intention.
Perception is both a process of registration by the brain and interpretation by the mind. Kant argued that nothing is perceived "as it is in reality" because in order to make sense of reality, it must first be taken in and conditioned by our understanding. Even the measurements you’re speaking about are done with human instruments, using human metrics, with patterns which humans notice. Everything measured is also an interpretation. Even what seems solid -- invariant readings, for example -- are only invariant due to human interpretation. Change the scale of the reading, and it becomes invariant, again.
So, it’s all interpretation -- whether one talks in terms of numbers and machine readings, or in terms of more literary sounding descriptions (i.e., "taste").
Trust me on this one- if you lose your keys in your house, they won’t get up and move by themselves; regardless of your perception, they will stay put until found. If philosophy were the only variable, the keys would be in your pocket when you looked for them, because you thought you put them there. But physical objects have a way of not caring about our made up stories of life.
Similarly, the measurements we make with instruments have a similar solidarity as they are not subject to the whim of our perception. Once the instrument is built, it will do things like your keys do- like stay in one place until moved. And the bits inside that make it work will do that regardless of what we think about them.
If it were as you say above, VU meters would impossible; in fact the industry of audio would be impossible if human hearing perceptual rules were not common to all people!
For example the ear detects sound pressure on a logarithmic curve. Imagine if some people used a linear curve instead.
Recordings would become impossible.
Designing an amplifier or loudspeaker that could be used by anyone would be impossible.
Music itself would be challenging at best if not also impossible, all just with that one variable. No-one would be able to agree on how loud to play.
Let’s imagine if the masking rule didn’t exist. I don’t know if I really can. It might make it impossible to communicate by speaking since quiet sounds would be heard at the same volume as louder sounds.
The simple fact is that human perceptual rules are a constant (not meaning to step on anyone’s toes but they are honed thru millions of years of our ancestor’s survival). Plain and simple; not knowing this fact one might speculate, but it would be all made-up stories; scintillating to philosophize about but in the end all just made up.
IOW its not a philosophical dilemma, unless you are willing to argue that humans might have 20 arms and 18 eyes, in either case you’d simply be wrong (no judgement).
Taste is entirely different. No accounting for it.
Some people might want to hear more treble. That’s fine- turn up the treble control. That is not the same as brightness that occurs from distortion.
That the 2nd harmonic is well-known to be musically in lockstep with the fundamental tone has been known for most of human history and can be shown mathematically. Philosophy has nothing to do with it, other than to take a contrary position simply because one can- yet I’m sure you’re likely to stop when a traffic light turns red.
Psycho-acoustics field studies even "taste" in experiments dividing people in group according to their history, measured hearing , musical habits etc ...
In Psycho-acoustic the objective part of reality and the subjective part are summonned together in very specific conditions ...This is why a good designer as atmasphere can design his amplifiers according to psycho-acoustic observations and facts ...It is why dr. Choueiri design his filters to recreate the spatial qualities of sound ...
There is a point about hilde45 observation that is very important though , hearing theories are in competition and we dont know how our brain hearing works completely ...Even after all measures done in all related fields including neurophysiology and physical acoustics and all there is between them ...
We dont know how the brain/ears beat the Fourier limit for example working non linearly in his own time domain : «For the first time, physicists have found that humans can discriminate a sound’s frequency (related to a note’s pitch) and timing (whether a note comes before or after another note) more than 10 times better than the limit imposed by the Fourier uncertainty principle»
So good is our technology , some deep mysteries subsist about hearing and sound ...
But once this is said, in applied day to day audio experience , "tastes" play a role mostly in marketing , the greatest role for taste is here ... Not in design nor in acoustics ..Not in the end result after creating the right balanced conditions for an audiophile perception ... everyone recognize a good sound when they encounter it ... If it was not the case , small room acoustics and great Hall acoustic architecture will not exist as acoustic knowledge among other knowledge , and these two acoustic dispositions so different they could be and they are , derived from the same laws and work the same for all brain ... There is a general acoustic consensus about it ...
I apologize because my "line" is a few paragraphs ... 😊
When you hear live music you know what it sounds like, right? When your equipment can make you believe that you hear real instruments and voices, that's more musical. Example: say you're visiting someone or place for the first time, walking upstairs and you hear a piano playing and you find out later that it was an audio system. That would definitely be a more musical system.
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