For me it means does the music reach my soul. Does it make me wanna cry, is it comforting, am I getting mad or is it making we want to dance.

For me, a system is "musical" when I'm not hearing it. What do I mean? Well, when you go to the cinema to watch a film, if the film is good, you become absorbed. You don't sit there thinking "I wonder what camera is being used, what audio devices & mic's or what grade is being used on post production" ... Instead, you enjoy the film. Same with HiFi ... If you're really enjoying the music and not thinking of your systems technicallitys, you've hit musicality 👍

@jonathansturm4163

5 жыл бұрын

Bingo! Great minds like a think...

@motorradmike

5 жыл бұрын

Chris Bishop, exactly. When we are listening to the music instead of our equipment.

@gerritgovaerts8443

5 жыл бұрын

Exactly , hit the nail and it proves my point . It's the "ABSENCE" (as opposed to PRESENCE)of objective adverse (or positive) properties that would draw attention to the existence of the physical sound system that allows you to fully enjoy the "musicallity" . So if a kind of "nothingness" defines the musicallity of a sound system , then one should logically conclude that the property of musicallity is misattributed to the system and it properly belongs to the content being played . The original question is thus a prime example IMHO of a philosphical "categorical mistake".

@sickjohnson

5 жыл бұрын

Is what you just described known as transparency...initially?

@adotopp1865

5 жыл бұрын

Yes Chris great comment. A musical system to me, is sounding like playing music you can get engrossed in, without hearing the HI-Fi sound. Same as yours really

Even listening to streamed/compressed music via a car audio system - one can experience magical musical moments! Glad that you & Willie connected.

I always thought that a system would be 'musical' if it conveyed the music as a flowing piece and not in a clunky or anaemic way and that vocals would be rich and full of life and not flat? Liked the video and yes another great question and answer, thanks Paul

I've also hardly missed a day since i first heard of you here Paul!

idk if you changed your own recording setup lately, but damn, so good now. thanks

Hi Paul , If you decide to hire someone to narrate your book , consider Mike Rowe . He could do it justice , like no one else . No offense intended for saying you can't do near the job ,that he can . Mike is the guy from "Dirty Jobs" in case someone doesn't know .

Love the old D-Link device on the desk!

In my humble opinion what makes a system musical is when you simply hear the music and not the equipment parts that make up the system, but i think its even more complex than that, room acoustics, the media type that is being used to replay the music, but for me the most important factor is the hearing ability capabilty of the user. each person will have their own hearing profile every one will be different so what sounds good to one person may not sound quiet so good to another. personal bias will also have a degree of impact on how we percieve the sound that we are hearing i dont think that there is a simple solution to the question i think there are to many variables. so in summary i think if it sounds about right then for that person it is right, if you favourite piece of music makes the hairs stand up on your neck or you feel a degree of emotion then your system is working and musical.

Sound that is light or transparent (opposite of thick or thin), melodic and foot tapping... with a sense of pleasure and enjoyment during listening...

Components don't have to be expensive, however, they do have to be carefully matched and this creates the synergy that channels the musicality of what you are listening to.

@adotopp1865

5 жыл бұрын

YepMrPeeBeeDeeBee I think you said it very well, "the synergy that channels the musicality of what you are listening to"

@kamilkashaf2766

Жыл бұрын

Exactly. My current system is all within $1500. I tried out 3 different budget amps readily available to me (both Class A/B and D) and with my current speakers things just sat well the Class A/B. Then I ordered three different materials of interconnects (pure copper, hybrid) all within $20 each and the hybrid cable gave me the definition I needed. Point is you can get a great sounding system just by exploring sideways, rather than upwards in price point.

For me a musical system is one that has what they used to call a musical rightness where you just know its sounding like real instruments. It can be hard to define but it just hits you. I remember fixing a Jade tube amp and hooking it up to my test original large advent speakers and its musical rightness was unmistakable.

I thought you might mention some audio transformers and how they can add 'sweetness' to a recording.

I Dig the Tektronix Scope. You should show off your Test Gear.

Paul, What kind of system do you have in your car?

Musical is to the ear of the beholder just as Beautiful is to the eye of the beholder.

What are those cages for?

For me, a musical system is one that sounds more natural and less artificial so you can forget the Hifi and connect with the music, which is the holy grail. However, maybe a more interesting question is what are the individual ingredients that go to make up a musical system ?

Hi Paul, this is not the first time you mentioned the system in your car. So I'll ask again and I hope you will provide an answer for all of us: What speakers and components do you have in your car? We'd love to know!

if you don't like the music bein played it not going to sound musical on any system to you. let's not forget the actual music here it's not all about the system. a great song will always be great what ever you listen to it on

Never thought about my system being musical, I think of the recorded music I’m listening to as sounding right, or not sounding right.

To me 'musical' means I get hooked, I just want to keep on listening, as opposed to a system that produces what in every sense of the word is music, with no obvious flaws, yet I just cannot get into it and enjoy it. The other day I scored a Pioneer Centrex SM-20A portable amp, it appears to be using nothing special chip amps and is definitely NOT high end. I plugged in a set of headphones and listened to some Queen, I just could not put down the headphones. I don't know what this amp is doing right, probably not measurable, but I had a good time, so this unit is on my 'good' pile. (It may be awful with speakers, but it loves my headphones)

One of the most relative questions ever.

"Musical" it's only terms of things in our heads. Sometimes noise of the rain- can touch a soul, and sometimes when we do not ready, to open space in our souls for music - it's feels like not musical. When i buy, to my mind - a wery good amplifier, first of all, I'll drink some whiskey with my Mom - and then go to listen to the new amp - it's sounds terrific. Next day i take time to listen again, and it's sounds like crap at all. Many People's say - it's just bad voltage in your ac line in the morning - or smth. else. But i know - you need to open some space in your soul - for listening, - no matter what system - it would play fantastic for you in that moment - that's - The MUSICAL)))

@adotopp1865

5 жыл бұрын

Yes I agree with you so much Євген Домашець "you need to open some space in your soul - for listening".......Brilliant.

@brianmoore581

5 жыл бұрын

I can halfway agree with that. Personally, I can enjoy music on even the crappiest boombox, or even my smartphone using its tiny speaker playing the worst mp3 you can find. It's kind of built in to our brains to be able to ignore the problems with what you have on hand, at least for a moment, the right moment, but not forever. A higher quality system will pull you into that right frame of mind, though, just by playing music, while the low quality system requires you to already be there of your own accord. That's my experience anyways.

Looks like Harman Kardon in the thumbnail picture, good system

Look at it this way. A given recording contains 100% of the music info you hope to hear at your speakers. But since various distortions wreak havoc on our sensitive playback instruments these same distortions greatly raise every last playback system's noise floor. The higher the noise floor the less music info remains audible at the speaker. And the more you're able to sufficiently address various distortions, you lower your playback system's noise floor. And the lower the noise floor, the closer you get to hearing ALL of the music info embedded in a given recording. Think of the noise floor as a performance-limiting governor. All the music info in the recording that remains above the noise floor remains audible at the speaker while everything below the noise floor remains inaudible. Various equipment and power and strategies and methods can all enhance what is already audible above the noise floor. But these very things actually do very little to significantly lower the much raised noise floor. And without knowing what the biggest causes are to induce this much raised noise floor, you will continue to hear playback systems generally sound more similar than different. Primarily because they all share the same high-level noise floor. Only when you hear far more of every last musical note in its entirety does it truly become more musical. And when the noise floor is lowered to a great extend, then you will hear, among other things, vast amounts of the recording hall's ambient information. When you can hear volumes of ambient information that were previously inaudible, that's when you'll instantly know your playback system sounds truly musical.

Your musical Paul you've got a musical voice can you sing!!!!

When the hair on the back of your neck stands up, it's a good sign its musical

@janinapalmer8368

5 жыл бұрын

doubledeckersoulwrecker The 3rd .... it's a good sign you're on something too.. lol ... don't confuse with a religious experience..hahaha !!

@jonathansturm4163

5 жыл бұрын

@@janinapalmer8368 I find nothing wrong with having a "religious" experience at a concert. Happened to me twice one summer when I saw BB King and Eric Clapton. Renée Geyer was the warm-up for Clapton and when she burst into song I remarked to my friend the unusual dayglow light that surrounded her on stage and he said: "What dayglow light effect?" It might have had somewhat to do with the Lebanese hash we were smoking, or me having the hots for Renée. She was _very_ hot back when she was 21... Listening to _461 Ocean Boulevard_ brings it all back.

Lot's of recordings aren't musical or natural to start with. A recording session were they put a big membrane condenser microphone close to an acoustic guitar... You can EQ and compress that down as much as you want in a mix, but you'll never get it sound natural. Put a microphone too close to a singing person, same thing. Yes, it will sound clear, crisp, detailed. But never like an unamplified live performance. That's a thing with "modern" recordings. In the 1950's and 1960's they had another approach. They just used two or three fixed microphones. One for left, one for right and an additional one for mid. And they were not tweaking knobs, effects, equalizers, not tweaking microphones, they were tweaking the placing and distance of musicians in the recording room. The same way of recording we still do with classical orchestras. But here's the point. Do we have a wrong point of view about musically sounding reproductions? What do we want to reproduce? In most cases, it's a not existing soundscape or stage, electronically made by a sound engineer on a mixing desk. Very detailed, you can hear every breath, every slide on a guitar neck, lots of base. But does it sound so detailed when they were playing during a real unplugged live performance? No! It doesn't. So always keep in mind were you are listening to and what their intentions were during the production. Keanu Reeves can't fly, only in the Matrix, but I still enjoy the movies. Freddie Mercury never sung three notes at the same time, but I still enjoy his studio work. It's hard to have a system that sounds musical without putting something musical in it. But when it is a created thing, take it with a grain of salt and enjoy the illusion :)

Don't forget about METALLICA & The San Francisco Symphony... 🤘🏼

To me....musical just means natural and correct...to my ears (or to the listener). No man-made, artificial audiophile bells and whistles like HF extension, air, ultra pin point imaging, super tight dry bass, hyperdetail etc etc. Perfectly balanced sound. Ability to hear everything but no frequency range calling attention to itself. Nothing to do with accuracy. I don't listen enough to life music to know the difference anyway. I am sure reproduced music is not even close to live...but it can still be musical.

The best audiophile experience is listening to something that is well recorded. A great stereo system cannot improve a crappy recording.

Recently I did a major upgrade to my system. Much to my surprise I found that ACDC and Black Sabbath had become Musical.

@jefflashway6644

2 жыл бұрын

Good trick.

@Shalmaneser1

2 жыл бұрын

@@jefflashway6644 Better than a Cheap Trick.

nos preamp tubes!

For me, the biggest problem these days isn't the quality of the Equipment, but the quality of the recordings. I listen to classical music most of the time, and even modern recordings are often of pretty bad quality. Having a good Hifi system can often even make that more evident. This is really a problem to my ears. We have all these amps and speakers that try to sound as true to the source as possible, but if the source is bad...

How long before PS audio breaks into the car audio scene?

@endrizo

5 жыл бұрын

what about some portable dac and amp for mobile phones? or a portable hi res music player ?

@sickjohnson

5 жыл бұрын

@@endrizo Doesn't the new LG phone have quad DAC's?

@endrizo

5 жыл бұрын

@@sickjohnson yes the do. their top models sound great. check the V20. V30. G6. G7...i still have the G5 with the B&O audio module (dac and amp) great sound.

@sudd3660

5 жыл бұрын

because its not high end

@endrizo

5 жыл бұрын

@Csab i know...enjoy it mate.

I think processed sounds (as opposed to just acoustic) from the studio are the best way to push the limits of a system and really appreciate what it can do. Of course dynamic range is important but finding source material recorded in 24bit/96kHz is the most important thing in enjoying music IMO.

it's one of those question when deaf people can answer. in other words, there's no right or wrong answer. A system that can reproduce that live experience.

I think I can describe something as “musical” if I like the music. Music that leaves me cold is not musical to me. Bad production is not musical either. It’s difficult to describe.

@gerritgovaerts8443

5 жыл бұрын

Ofcourse , it's about the music , not the valves or the transistors

The stuff I listen to (including Beethoven on occasion) sounds fine on my old Harmon Kardon 430 Twin Powered receiver... my speakers could do with some more top end though. An audiophile would choke themselves scoffing at my system, but it suits me good enough. Most of the time I'm listening to stuff in my car which is a horrible environment to listen to stuff. But again, I'm fine with good enough.

@adotopp1865

5 жыл бұрын

an audiophile is just an enthusiast. He doesn't have to be a snob.

A hifi system can't be musical in itself, because it is just something that can transport and amplify sound. But the sound it amplifies can be musical or not musical.

Short answer.......tubes....

Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

Musicality is elicited when a system does not impart it's own coloration into the soundstage but acts as a conduit to reproduce the sound as the original acoustic space and recording engineer intended it to be heard!!!

@jonathansturm4163

5 жыл бұрын

I'm not at all sure whether that is true. I recalled the other day that The Doors' _Light My Fire_ had been accidentally mastered leaving out the Dolby A decoding stage. The result was an artificial brightening of Jim Morrison's vocal, with an over-emphasised high-mid range and a compressed top end. The relevant word here is serendipity. Unless you are an extreme purist.

@adotopp1865

5 жыл бұрын

@@jonathansturm4163 I'm sorry but I cannot make sense of your reply to fookingsoc

@jonathansturm4163

5 жыл бұрын

@@adotopp1865 Quoting fookingsoc: "to reproduce the sound as the original acoustic space and recording engineer _intended_ it to be heard!" [emphasis mine] The example I gave was one where the result of the recording was unintentional. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. Happy accidents occur.

@adotopp1865

5 жыл бұрын

@@jonathansturm4163 Hmm I see. Do you think fookingsoc would have been OK if he had said just "the recording"? instead of "the sound as original acoustic space and recording engineer intended it to be heard!!!" ?

@jonathansturm4163

5 жыл бұрын

@@adotopp1865 No, not really. My problem is with that innocent-sounding word "intended". I'm tempted to be prolix here, but restrain myself. The claim to knowledge of others' intentions is equivalent to a claim of being able to read other people's minds. I don't believe that's possible. That is why I gave an example where intention was absent.

Well, there's a lot of bad music and some great music. I suspect the question really has to do with striking the emotional reflex within that cannot be controlled by our conscience brain. If you are entranced, drawn in to the performance and in many cases dripping a tear - that's it. As for the system, it might not take an expensive array of components.

@jonathansturm4163

5 жыл бұрын

"If you are entranced, drawn in to the performance and in many cases dripping a tear - that's it. As for the system, it might not take an expensive array of components." Indeed. The only essential components are the composition and its performance. Something odd I noticed a couple of years back I went to a performance locally by Bukhu, the Mongolian throat singer. He performed both his "solo" act and with a local amateur music band. I have never heard that band play anywhere near as well as they did that night before, or since. Bukhu's genius lies not just in his vocal abilities and horse-fiddle playing. He also influences any musicians performing nearby. That's magic... I have a recording of Bukhu. As good as it is, it's nowhere near being in the same room as him.

Willie Nelson in the car .. and WATCHING HIM...?? OMG..!! Musicality means just how SATISFYING it seems, and that ( by definition) means how good your sound system is ... simple as that ! It can also be how good the recording is as well .. so bear that in mind .

@BlankBrain

5 жыл бұрын

I saw Willie Nelson live several years ago. He put on a great show, but looked exhausted. I felt sorry that I was one of the reasons that he had to be there.

As Alan Watts says, there are prickly words and gooey words. The prickly words are sharp and precise, and refer to specific things. Like Water is H2O for example. But the word "wet" is more of a gooey word. It's a general word that describes a general property of various liquids, it doesn't just refer to a specific liquid like "H2O". Now, there are some people who seem to believe that only prickly words are "real" and "scientific", whereas any general or poetic descriptions must be subjective and imprecise, and therefore they cannot have any legitimate descriptive value. It's completely foolish, because the real world is full of gooey concepts. Concepts like health and illness, for example, are gooey concepts. They have no precise technical definition, yet they are extremely useful. Our lives are full of gooey concepts - good and bad, fast and slow, beautiful vs ugly, excellence vs mediocrity, quality vs low-grade junk. These concepts are super useful and should not be ignored just because certain pedantic people don't like imprecise concepts.

@gerritgovaerts8443

5 жыл бұрын

Dunno about the added philosophical value of calling these words "pricky" or "gooey" , but I'll buy subjective vs. objective . I have no bone to pick with subjective experiences or properties . I do not value them less or more than objective stuff . They just both exist . Where I do have a philosphical and linguistic problem is when one makes a "categorical mistake" in assigning subjective properties to something that by it"s nature is not capable of having these properties . It's much like trying to anthropomorphisizing animal behaviour.

Audyssey tries to do it by producing a silky sound.

Go always - at least - for 3!-way loudspeakers...Don't buy any 2-ways anymore in your life - keep that in your mind -

A sound system is a collection of hooked up electronics and electromegnetic and mechanical subsytems . As such , such a system can only offer technical properties : phase correct , perfect transients , lack of overshoot , no ringing , no artefacts like enclosure vibrations , no resonances , no distortion etc.... But even such an ideal system would still be unable to perfectly replicate the sound field of the orginal live event . That is a mathematical impossibility with only 2 channels (dixit Siegfried Linkwitz) . IMHO , only content (musical score) or people like composers or players (pianist , bassist...) deserve to be called more or less "musical" . Musicallity for me is a subjective property not an objective one . High fidelity is a requirement for a system to enable the enjoyment of a "musical" performance . The system it self can never create content. Words and their meanings do count . Great confusion can be created if we assign subjective adjectives to soulless objects and vice versa.

@adotopp1865

5 жыл бұрын

Nice comment Gerrit I understand what you are saying . But would you agree that a Hi-Fi can be described as musical if it does the job of playing to sound like the music it is reproducing ? with no interference or any sound that is not the music?

@jonathansturm4163

5 жыл бұрын

@@adotopp1865 The OED defines musical: "Having the nature or characteristics of music; tuneful, melodious, harmonious; pleasing in sound, euphonious. Of sounds: Such as are used in music; having the nature of ‘tones’, as distinguished from mere ‘noises’." Think about this in relation to let's say _Air on a G String_ by JS Bach (tuneful, melodious, harmonious; pleasing in sound, euphonious). Now try applying the same descriptors _in the same sense_ to an amplifier, or speaker cable for example. It doesn't make sense. The composer or performer of music does so with their mind. The listener also interprets what they are hearing with their mind. The record player, the amplifier, the speakers and so on do what they do without the mind being involved. Yes, they were designed by a mind, but they require no brain activity to perform their mechanical functions. The grooves in a record will wiggle the stylus regardless of our thoughts. That said, we do want to be able to convey the ability of our musical reproduction equipment to be faithful to the performance. To that end we have the term hi-fi (high fidelity). Fidelity means "correspondence with the original; exactness". This is related to, but distinct from musical. Using one term for two quite different concepts tends to create confusion rather than insight, but then that appears to be the main purpose of post-modern philosophy.

@gerritgovaerts8443

5 жыл бұрын

thank you !@@jonathansturm4163

@jonathansturm4163

5 жыл бұрын

@@gerritgovaerts8443 You are more than welcome.

Ummmm, i might go out on a limb here, and say....music....?

A guy which understands physics and acoustic who are avoids listening to audiophiles uhm audiofools

fully horn loaded speakers...….

@awdadwadwad1723

5 жыл бұрын

@Larry Niles naah the modern ones are great...

@adotopp1865

5 жыл бұрын

poserwanabe I know what Horn speakers means but what does the term "fully horn loaded"mean? Is it when the driver is hidden behind the horn and is a compression driver ?

@poserwanabe

5 жыл бұрын

@@adotopp1865 it means that all drivers in the system are horn loaded, bass, mid, high etc ....it's just my humble opinion. I've been in the industry for over 40 years and have heard a lot of home and live concert gear. Every time I hear a quality well engineered horn loaded system, it sounds "real" to me. They're very dynamic with lots of punch. Then again, I'm a drummer so maybe I'm deaf 🙉

@poserwanabe

5 жыл бұрын

@Larry Niles when I was kid I saw Buddy Rich live, I say right up front with my dad. The HORN section was right in my face. They sounded incredible. I've never heard silk dome tweeters reproduce that. I also like my music played at or near live levels, horn systems can do that effortlessly. Harsh ?? Then take a 3db notch at 3.5k, sit back and enjoy... Cheers

I laugh hard when i hear terms like "musical, chocolaty, euphonic (rather, distorted), Airy, veiled, open etc... Complete unscientific mambo jumbo.

One thing is for sure, that harman/kardon won't make it sound musical ;)

Amusical means autotune, and pro tools.