Accurate vs Musical

The ideal would be a system that recreates, at the listener's ear, the exact waveforms of the performance that the artists originally performed or intended (specifying "intended" to take into account multitrack and synthesized recordings that never had an "original performance"). Frankly, that's way beyond our technology today.

The next best thing is to receate the PERCEPTION that the artists intended. This is more reasonably approachable, but requires study and research into "what matters" and "what doesn't". Much of what gets touted as demonstrating "accuracy" really doesn't matter very much, and much of what's ingnored does.

If we are measuring the things that matter, "accurate" and "musical" are the same.

Duke

"BTW “accurate” is “musical” when the recording is!" - pbb

Well said

I see it a bit (little) different.
Musical speaker is the one that tries to "emulate" or "simulate" the real live unamplified music.

Our hobby is a "game" of simulation of the objectivism deep down in our mind regarding our perspective of music.

Accurate speaker is the one that reproduces the recording sound found on cds or vinyls (or whatever media) including: the mastering skills of the studio engineer and/or producer, the recording equipment capabilities, different recording techniques (direct cut...), all the weakest links characterestics, like cables, power conditioning, power stabilization, microphones capabilities or types (tube ones for example), the mood of the group playing, the mood of the recording engineers and stuff, the maybe different geographical parts of the recording (voices in one studio in N.Y, instruments in other one in L.A), the succesfull or not mixing,the humidity in the studio, the different vibrations resonances or distortion, the money spend on a production, the musicians skills, the "spirit" of the recording or the boring routine process feeling, the material and/or quality of the cd/vinyl (180gr, 200gr, speed, gold, aluminum, blacks..) the serial number of pressing (the first cutted media sounds different than the last ones) .......................etc etc etc etc etc..

If I had to pick I'd choose the best possible musical speaker that gives me the choice to enjoy music and see it as a forest not as a sum of trees.
As the Ancient Greeks tought us I'd look better for the Golden mean between the 2 "versions" (accurate / musical), if there's such speaker.

But in the end of the line a musical speaker is also accurate and not the opposite. No I prefer to bypass the harsh voice's siblings of a bad recording of a bad engineer because he was boring doing his job, let the music prevail.

(Just some objective thoughts on the beloved hobby called "High-end or High-fi" IMHO).

Of course if I had to run a studio I'd picked an accurate monitor speaker to monitor the recording. In my hobby I don't have to monitor anything, JUST LISTEN !

* I forgot for the accurate speakers* the microphones placement and the numerous approaches in that matter.

How about the many parameters of accuracy? Tonal accuracy is different from accuracy with transients and decay. Electrostats do a great job with leading edges, while they fail to properly flesh out the "meat" of the instrument.

Phase problems can arise from crossover dissection. Once acclimated to wide-range drivers, XO'd speakers sound wrong even if they are fast and evenhanded with tone.

How about frequency coherency? The multitude of varying drivers found on multi-way speakers each have their own voice and dispersion patterns. A good designer can minimize these inconsistencies, but they remain. As a Zu owner, these problems are intolerable to me in the long term.

Some speakers like to play loud and their owners tell guests "THESE BABIES REALLY OPEN UP WHEN YOU PUT THE GAS IN 'EM". Other speakers simply will not play loudly without significant and horrible distortions. Frequency balance almost always changes significantly with volume.

How about speaker loading? One reason many people do not like Thiel speakers probably relates to the amplification used in auditioning, possibly which doesn't cater to Thiel's notorious load problems. Thus, the amplifier must be chosen to "hide" their brutally low-impedance loads in the bass frequencies. Properly matched, these speakers are ideal for some listeners.

Characteristics, above, always cater to some volume and music tastes better than others. There is no speaker which is unlimited by any of the factors, above, or others not mentioned here.

"Musical", to me, says "This component sounds very nice, and its errors are ones of omission. It does not try to extract the rats squeeking on Track 4 of AudioNervosa's 'Breakdown' record, but that's OK because it (they) sounded very nice and could be listened to for hours on end".

We audiophiles often scoff at such components, casting them aside as inferior. However, this might be just the ticket for the music lover who doesn't see equipment buying as a lifelong obsession. Is that listener more or less happy as they listen to their records? They listen and love, while we listen and obsess. Hmmm. . .