Musicality what is it?

I hear this word a lot what does it mean?
Keith.

 

Keith,

It means different things to different people. Generally speaking, if a rig keeps you nailed to your seat spinning disks as opposed to watching TV, for you, it's musical.

regards,

dave

 

Dave, that's probably the best explanation I've read. Hard to argue with that.

 

So what makes a component 'musical' then?
Keith.

 

It means putting on 'The Lamb Lies down on Broadway' at the beginning and listening to the whole 90 mins!

I do this once a week, I'll put something on and get engrossed.

 

It makes you want to listen to music as a focused thing, not just listening whilst on the tube or washing the car.

 

For me, it's the same things that make a live concert enjoyable. If the musicians sound like they're in tune and in time with each other, chances are I will as well assuming I like the music. If the band sounds out of tune or out of step, I'm not going to enjoy it whether it's live or recorded and even if they're one of my favorites.

 

'Musical' to me is a bad thing because it tends to be used by audiophile types who like massive distortion.

I'd prefer to describe a sound as enjoyable, or foot tapping.

 

This is one of my favourite audiophile words and, like pretty much all new audiophile words or old words that audiophiles have adopted and degraded, it does not have a meaning in the conventional sense. Like all good marketing words it has associations for the intended audience, in this case positive ones, but lacks a concrete meaning so that it cannot be disputed as being false which, of course, would require agreement on the meaning of the word. Using words like this sends signals to people with a bit of common sense about honesty, intellect and common sense.

 

Exactly HG! Exactly, I have come to associate it with the charlatans!
I would still like to know exactly what makes a piece of equipment musical?
Keith.

 

Is it easier to define by looking at it's opposite?

Have you heard systems where all the notes are there, and even in the right places - but somehow what you hear isn't music?

There is clearly a short step here into the fact that 'music' is a result of our own perceptions and even in live performance what may be musical to one ear may not be to another.

 

I am really looking for technical reasons why a component would be considered unmusical?
Keith

 

I would suggest that charlatans is probably not correct.

Are the people in this thread that use the word charlatans? Or is it more that they are a bit mentally challenged, if that is the correct PC term, with a less than full grasp of what is going on?

Even if we consider serial reviewers of the wackiest audiophile products who are going to use words like musicality in order to knowingly mislead those that respond positively, is it reasonable to call them charlatans? They are people, probably working perfectly honestly for their employers on the supply side of the industry, who are giving the consumers of these products what they want and, in most cases, the consumers are perfectly happy with their purchases. I think a charge of charlatanism would only stand if the consumers of these products had been tricked into purchasing the products and are subsequently unhappy.

The intangibles/associations built by marketing and current audiophile beliefs are very much a part of these products and add real value for audiophiles even though they do not for non-audiophiles. It is like a picture of 3 coloured squares, to some within the world of modern art it may be worth millions of pounds but to those outside the world of modern art it is worth very little.

 

I have used it in the past and stand by it.

Have you looked it up?

"Musicality is a noun that means sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music. The word also refers to the quality or state of being musical (aka melodiousness.) A musical person has the ability to perceive differences in pitch, rhythm and harmonies. One usually differentiates between three types of musicality: To be able to perceive music (musical receptivity), to be able to reproduce music as well as creating music (musical creativity)."

If we are listening to music on a system then musicality (the quality or state of being musical (aka melodiousness) and high level of such is good.

If the bass is thin, the treble non existent or the phasing wrong we would not find it pleasant just like that band that are out of tune or time.
We are not listening to jet engines or other noises if we were you would use words like jet like or perhaps Jetical
So it describes the ability of a system to reproduce music in an entertaining and realistic way. What is wrong with that? Agree very much with Dave's comment - it gives pleasure.

 

It's one of my 'pet hate' words to be honest, along with the phrase 'made it sound broken'. 'Musical' is so open ended (even within context of other subjective words and phrases) it makes phrases like 'pace, rhythm and timing' seem positively defined. It often seems to me to be used as a 'last resort' term in circumstances where component A is thought to be subjectively better than component B in every respect......except B is more 'musical' (it also seems to be used by those who like what I would describe as slow, muffled, one-note bass).

 

Quote,
'If the bass is thin, the treble non existent or the phasing wrong we would not find it pleasant just like that band that are out of tune or time.
Why not just say that?
Keith.

 

Isn't the whole thing of what you, I or anyone hears subjective? - Come on, you trade people need to get a life!
Ok I agree you need more descriptive words than just musical!

Quote,
'If the bass is thin, the treble non existent or the phasing wrong we would not find it pleasant just like that band that are out of tune or time.
Why not just say that?
Keith.

Well I would of course.

 

Musicality = http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beethoven-P...1537523-6407113?ie=UTF8&qid=1291986924&sr=1-4

Doesn't seem to matter what it's played on, spellbinding in the car or a cheap dvd player.

 

Paul Farnsworth once said that music is made of socially accepted patterns of sounds. I think we can extend that to also say personally accepted patterns of sounds. What it means is, music is not defined by the sound itself, but by the programming of the individual from his or her surroundings. What seems to be music to one person might not be to another, and the perception of music is a learned reaction.

As such, to describe a piece of equipment as musical is pointless, even if some elements of it's distortion character could be perceived, or not, as musical. It's as individual, and culturally, dependant as saying 'this piece of music is musical'.

One needs to describe aspects of the sound in detail, not ones programmed reaction to it.

Then again, I guess it's just an argument against subjective review. Give me the facts, or at least accurate sound descriptors, and let me decide what my perception of that would would be.

 

I think 'musicality' as audioknobs use it means - 'something I can hear through to enjoy the music'. as such it is a term not linked to any particular, conventional metric such as %THD.

*I* think this contraction actually has sound basis, because each of us hears in an individual way, a set of filters learnt and applied by our own wetware over a lifetime's experience. I see 'musicality' as web shorthand for ' it engaged me', for people who are not musicians; and that's just fine by me.

Forget looking for engineering justifications for this description; it's foundation is too broad (being based on a learned response) and neither is it an appropriation of a term meaning something completely different to most engineers (c.f. the way audiophiles often define 'timing' when they probably mean 'damping' ).





..at this point, Dave's definition is about as pithy as it gets. I like