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What is Musicality?

Hello fellow music lovers,

I am upgrading my system like a lot of us who follow Audiogon. I read a lot about musicality on Audiogon as though the search for musicality can ultimately end by acquiring the perfect music system -- or the best system that one can afford. I really appreciate the sonic improvements that new components, cables, plugs and tweaks are bringing to my own system. But ultimately a lot of musicality comes from within and not from without. I probably appreciated my Rocket Radio and my first transistor radio in the 1950s as much I do my high-end system in 2010. Appreciating good music is not only a matter of how good your equipment is. It is a measure of how musical a person you are. Most people appreciate good music but some people are born more musical than others and appreciate singing in the shower as much as they do listening to a high-end system or playing a musical instrument or attending a concert. Music begins in the soul. It is not only a function of how good a system you have.

Sabai
sabai

Showing 1 response by hfisher3380

hfisher3380
167 posts
 
"Musical" literally means "of the music". In general it tends to be used to describe the subjective artistic merit of a musical performance. In my opinion the word has been "bastardized" to hifi. Components and stereos are not "musical" - they are sophisticated electronics designed to reproduce the musicality of the original recorded event - or lack thereof. They should be designed with the explicit goal of reproducing the signal as accurately as possible - not to be "musical", "artistic" or otherwise call attention to themselves.

My own opinion is that this term is one of the most overused words in the hifi press. It means little more to me than the reviewer saying "I like the way it sounds". It is not edifying or descriptive as it has no frame of reference.
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