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Musicality - have we worked out what it is yet?


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23 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

Heres one you can try.

List off products that you think are the best in accuracy and see if if everyone agrees they are musical. (I can't as I do not know which ones are accurate?) Try and keep it at a reasonable price or others most probably would have never heard them.

Then other can list off products they find have been the best in musical to them.

 

I am sure we will all not agree on the list.

 

I don't think you have absorbed any of the lessons in this thread. You couldn't possibly write the above if you had.

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Just now, Newman said:

 

You're joking of course? 95% of hifi gear is a fashion industry, and is reported on, hyped, assessed and purchased on that basis. You have to realise that sighted listening and auditioning creates imagined sonic differences that are actually integrated experiences where sonic factors are dominated by non-sonic factors but the integrated perception is mis-attributed to sonics. On that basis there is a thriving industry in diversity and price ranges, successfully extracting plastic from our pockets over and over.

I would think 99% of people would pick their hifi gear in sighted listening and auditioning. It is just how it is. Hence musicality is a good term to relate to them. :)

I would say a few on here that are very much into the technical side would do all the battery of tests and blind auditions, frequency sweeps etc to select their ones.

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1 minute ago, Newman said:

"Preference" is the good term, because it attributes the difference where it belongs, in the listener, not the gear.

 

The entire point!

 

 

Preference does not quite cut it.

It is more like the old saying -  Its what gets the foot tapping

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You can have 2 products and you prefer one over the other but still both are not what you call musical.

 

I suppose to me it is the one that brings emotion to my listening sessions. The one that gets me to listen to the music instead of the components. Where I do not think of wanting to change something as I listen. Repeating tracks over and over thinking what should I change.

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Guest Eggcup The Daft
46 minutes ago, Sir Sanders Zingmore said:

 

Most audio products sound more "the same" than most audiophiles will admit. 

We impose many of the differences, in different ways.

 

Some things are technical. Rooms are important. Speakers interface differently with every different room they are used in. Also, there is no defined speaker/amplifier interface. So, even if every loudspeaker was designed to sound exactly the same (within the physical limits of the designs) in an ideal situation, they don't stand a chance in the real world. In practice, speaker designers will give us different products to do things like suit different rooms and room sizes.

 

55 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

 

If so there would not be as many different sounding products out there as there are now. The majority would all sound the same.

Engineers and designers are all pretty good these days and it seems from a lot of posts, it is not hard to know what makes a better sound reproduction., so if they knew the secret, most would too.

 

We have a tendency when presented with a demo where something sounds different, to believe that the different sound is somehow better - it comes with the territory of looking for "magic" that will give that special system, and with the territory shown by many in this thread to believe that "musical" is different from "accurate". If different sells, different will be made. The ones that sound almost the same are probably the better designed and more accurate, though - that is a lot of people tending towards the same preferred sound. Different may (but doesn't always, by any means) disappoint over a relatively short period of time  - reference the people  who praise components for huge improvements in sound only to sell them a few months later.

 

3 minutes ago, Newman said:

 

You're joking of course? 95% of hifi gear is a fashion industry, and is reported on, hyped, assessed and purchased on that basis. You have to realise that sighted listening and auditioning creates imagined sonic differences that are actually integrated experiences where sonic factors are dominated by non-sonic factors but the integrated perception is mis-attributed to sonics. On that basis there is a thriving industry in diversity and price ranges, successfully extracting plastic from our pockets over and over.

I just spent a while trying to come up with a way to say this. You got it.

 

It's also the continuation of tradition. Many of the current brands on the market actually did sound different when they started out in the 1950s, 60s, 70s; much more so than today. Most of the British, and a fair chunk of the US, magazine reviewers and "experts", many dealers, and, well, one or two of us on this forum, got our initial conditioning before the CD arrived. Never underestimate the power of culture. I'm pretty sure that when these reviewers get the latest Naim preamp to review, they are hearing the 1970s model in their heads - and we hear it in their words of "wisdom".

 

The "integrated experience" is compulsory in practice. Nothing wrong with that as long as we know it for what it is.

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13 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

Preference does not quite cut it.

It is more like the old saying -  Its what gets the foot tapping

 

Tap your foot to some Wagner operas sometime. Or to some bagpipe music. 

 

PRaT is a bogus concept, invented by Linn. 

 

Musicality is related to how accurately a system reproduces music. Anything else is, like PRaT, bogus. 

 

A more acceptable term would be: "preference". 

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I think we have 2 types of people here.

Designers, Techncal inclined professionals that delve right into the "accuracy" part as the most important.

Then the general public that do not care for these aspects as much and just want to listen for enjoyment. Hence pick whats musical to them on just sighted listening.

I listen to many speakers and would have no clue which is more accurate at the time. Maybe I lean towards accuracy but I would never really know. My choice always comes down to what I find more musical.

 

I think I have read most of these good designers, engineers etc bring out a product but then like to hand it over to the general public to get their views of how well it sounds and tweak their designs.  What tests good in a lab, does not necessarily mean it will sound good to the public.

Edited by rocky500
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3 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

What tests good in a lab, does not necessarily mean it will sound good to the public.

 

This is an often repeated statement, but I've never seen any solid proof to back it up.

In fact, I think there is far more evidence to say that equipment which measures well does actually sound very good (to the general public)

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Guest Eggcup The Daft
17 minutes ago, Zaphod Beeblebrox said:

 

Tap your foot to some Wagner operas sometime. Or to some bagpipe music. 

 

PRaT is a bogus concept, invented by Linn. 

 

Musicality is related to how accurately a system reproduces music. Anything else is, like PRaT, bogus. 

 

A more acceptable term would be: "preference". 

As an aside, with the right music, can you find a modern playback device that you can't tap your foot to? It's a test that pretty much any 78 player with an electric motor can pass, and I've tapped along to an 1897 Edison cylinder player.

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5 minutes ago, eltech said:

 

This is an often repeated statement, but I've never seen any solid proof to back it up.

In fact, I think there is far more evidence to say that equipment which measures well does actually sound very good (to the general public)

What I mean is I think I read a designer had his speaker measuring very flat but found by changing the frequency response in certain areas, sounded better to most people.

Same with the producers of a song that mix certain instruments and vocals to sound different than how they sound as it works out better for the final product.

Edited by rocky500
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2 minutes ago, Eggcup The Daft said:

As an aside, with the right music, can you find a modern playback device that you can't tap your foot to? It's a test that pretty much any 78 player with an electric motor can pass, and I've tapped along to an 1897 Edison cylinder player.

 

As long as it is not bagpipe music, a Wagner opera or one of several thousand other types of music, no. A human tendency to foot tap is ingrained across all cultures, regardless of the source. 

Edited by Zaphod Beeblebrox
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12 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

What I mean is I think I read a designer had his speaker measuring very flat but found by changing the frequency response in certain areas, sounded better to most people.

 

Well I alluded to this point before, but will clearly state it this time. A speaker than reproduces the full range of frequencies on a recording will sound better* than a speaker which does not reproduce the full range of frequencies. Many (most) speakers cannot play with a flat frequency response to 30hz and as such a lot of music is lost.

 

So I wonder what speaker you are referring to and what its frequency response is / was, and what frequency was adjusted by the designer? Without that information, (no offence intended) it sounds like you are just repeating a marketing blurb, or comment by the designer posted in a review.

 

Edit:

*I hate the word better. But in context im saying that if we assume that detail levels between two pairs of speakers are not dramatically different, a speaker with a wider frequency response should sound better.

 

 

Edited by eltech
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6 minutes ago, eltech said:

 

Well I alluded to this point before, but will clearly state it this time. A speaker than reproduces the full range of frequencies on a recording will sound better than a speaker which does not reproduce the full range of frequencies. Many (most) speakers cannot play with a flat frequency response to 30hz and as such a lot of music is lost.

 

 

 

So I wonder what speaker you are referring to and what its frequency response is / was, and what frequency was adjusted by the designer? Without that information, (no offence intended) it sounds like you are just repeating a marketing blurb, or comment by the designer posted in a review.

 

 

 

Might have been in the Harbeth forums by Alan shaw but it was a while ago now, so most probasbly have it wrong.

Edited by rocky500
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I'll summarise my key points (beliefs)

 

Musical = playing the full range of frequencies on the recording, with lowest possible distortion and noise, with the right scale and proportion to each frequency.

 

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Just now, eltech said:

I'll summarise my key points (beliefs)

 

Musical = playing the full range of frequencies on the recording, with lowest possible distortion and noise, with the right scale and proportion to each frequency.

 

Close, and agree whole heartedly

 

is amusing though when tuning a system for the masses as in the General Public if you give them a flat response (no gain in bass)  free of distortion to 0.01THD, they won't like it and to them not "musical" 

On the other hand lay on 12dB of gain from 200Hz down and the ball game changes, even if the bass units are on the edge of popping.

 

At a personal level, musical can mean what ever you want it to be, quite possibly any attribute to playback that you like, which may well be low distortion and flat frequency response.

 

Musical could mean anything there is no other word for ;) 

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Guest Eggcup The Daft
21 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

What I mean is I think I read a designer had his speaker measuring very flat but found by changing the frequency response in certain areas, sounded better to most people.

Same with the producers of a song that mix certain instruments and vocals to sound different than how they sound as it works out better for the final product.

Both entirely explicable.

Speakers have to work in listening rooms... and the room varies the sound. So, if a designer is designing a small speaker for a small room, they can make allowances for the effect of the type of room it will be played in. The result in the room is more accurate. And therefore sounds better.

 

Similarly, modern studio recordings are "creations". There's nothing natural about each musician playing along in turn to a guide vocal and drum track, and most modern "popular" music involves the use of synthesisers that may lead to a unique sound not heard before playing the most important part of the backing.

One of the problems facing us is how to hear the sound as the performer/producer intended, because we have no reference for it. If our systems are accurate, though, we can be reasonably certain that we are hearing that new sound, and the balance that the producer intended, as it happened. So I would say that your second statement is an argument for accurate systems!

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8 minutes ago, Eggcup The Daft said:

Both entirely explicable.

Speakers have to work in listening rooms... and the room varies the sound. So, if a designer is designing a small speaker for a small room, they can make allowances for the effect of the type of room it will be played in. The result in the room is more accurate. And therefore sounds better.

 

Similarly, modern studio recordings are "creations". There's nothing natural about each musician playing along in turn to a guide vocal and drum track, and most modern "popular" music involves the use of synthesisers that may lead to a unique sound not heard before playing the most important part of the backing.

One of the problems facing us is how to hear the sound as the performer/producer intended, because we have no reference for it. If our systems are accurate, though, we can be reasonably certain that we are hearing that new sound, and the balance that the producer intended, as it happened. So I would say that your second statement is an argument for accurate systems!

How does the general public know which is the more accurate system? (that includes me) :-)

Edited by rocky500
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19 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

Are studio monitor speakers more accurate?

Are we better to buy what they use to mix the songs, so we hear what they hear?

 

If you are talking about control room monitors then yes, I'd say these are much more accurate Because, they have a very wide frequency response, have large woofers for appropriate scale, and the frequencies can be adjusted with trim pots on the rear of the speakers to account for room accoustics, in order to achieve a flat frequency response.

https://www.adam-audio.com/en/sx-series/s5x-h/  < These would be awesome!

 

if you are talking about a pair of $200 prosumer ""studio monitors"" from your local DJ shop, then no.

Edited by eltech
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