Finally, we get to the most important aspect of a system’s presentation—musicality. Unlike the previous characteristics, musicality isn’t any specific quality that you can listen for, but the overall musical satisfaction the system provides. Your sensitivity to musicality is destroyed when you focus on a certain aspect of the presentation; i.e., when you listen critically. Instead, musicality is the gestalt, the whole of your reaction to the reproduced sound. We also use the term involvement to describe this oneness with the music. A sure indication that a component or a system has musicality is when you sit down for an analytical listening session and minutes later find yourself immersed in the music and abandoning the critical listening session. This has happened many times to me as a reviewer, and is a good measure of the product’s fundamental “rightness.” Ultimately, musicality—not dissecting the sound—is what high-end audio is all about.
While normally I would agree with you, Luca , in this case for me at least maybe it’s tied to our American audio magazines. Reading two of these almost every month, and after a while it seems like these writers are just trying to outdo each other, coming up with words to describe something that for me just seem like they’re there to show erudition, or something.
And therein lies my problem. The most challenging college courses I took in my engineering education were English language classes that required interpreting “the writer’s intent.”
No disrespect intended (and I actually mean it), but the fact that you did find it challenging to interpret the writer’s intent may be where the road divides. There are those who love language and those who love to measure things. One is not better than the other but the two are different. And in some, maybe rare, instances there are those who love both.
This is the reason why I love describing audio stuff both by words and numbers (as you have read several times on this forums). And because of my poor English, of course.
Anyway it’s always amazing to find new adjectives for sound qualities and audio attributes so difficult to describe using commonly known words, IME.
I’m listening right now to a new cable (Ethernet) and almost a dozen of adjectives are coming to my mind but no one can describe what I’m hearing. All at once I heard myself say: “complacent to the point of making promises but not quite keeping them, like a morning when the sun filters through scattered clouds without knowing whether it will soon clear up or start raining”. Or not yet believable…
A new Ethernet cable? NA? Stealth? Or something else? I am putting down a list, again, for future 5 yr. Upgrades. But I still like my Shunyata Omega a lot. Not too long ago it was the best of the bunch, but now it dropped like a rock; like AQ Dragon😆
I find this to be very true when describing wine, one of the few things I like more than my audio system.
A couple of months ago were were enjoying a great, new to us, Vermentino, and after we ran out of words a friend said, “This is wine that tells a story!” Perfecto!
I’m still at my daughter’s home, but finally I was able to use their Sony receiver to play Qobuz. I gave them an old pair of Silverline floorstanding speakers a couple of years ago, and the music is surprisingly enjoyable.
, in this case for me at least maybe it’s tied to our American audio magazines. Reading two of these almost every month, and after a while it seems like these writers are just trying to outdo each other, coming up with words to describe something that for me just seem like they’re there to show erudition, or something.