Accurate vs Musical

here's another thing to consider.

the issue of musicality and accuracy may be irrelevant to the purpose of listening to music. it may not matter how you describe the performance of a stereo system as long as it satisfies your objective.

i visited a friend the other day and we were listening to the beethoven "kreutzer" sonata. he fell asleep during the last movement.

that is an indication of a great stereo system. sit down, listen and fall asleep, or lower your blood pressure. what difference does it make if the frequency response is restricted or if the stereo systems is low resolution? listening to music is preferable to taking pills.

accurate: input=output. the reproduction of the recording is error free. all stereo systems are inaccurate. there is no perfect reproduction of recordings.

musical: the "sound" of instruments acoustically reproduced.
the sound of an instrument varies with the conditions of the performance venue.

as far as listening to music in the home, musical refers to naturalness of timbre. "It sounds real" is an indication of musicality.

one cannot not know the sound of a recording, so it is not possible to measure the inaccuracy of a stereo system.

in my opinion, accuracy is unattainable, so my focus is the sound of an instrument. i look for adjustments in my stereo system to get closer to the sound of an instrument.

Is Yo-Yo Ma accurate or musical? Some might say both.

He definitely puts me to sleep (in a good way).

It's actually quite straightforward to me.
I would use the term "accurate" as an objective term to describe how well a speaker reproduces the exact waveform as fed to it, without any frequency troughs or peaks or other tonal coloration. Such speakers are sought after as a monitors in recording and movie sound studios, as they allow engineers the best chance to know exactly what is being recorded, rather than a sound any particular listener prefers.

"Musical" is a purely subjective term, and speakers described as such generally color the sound in some way that is pleasing to the ear of certain listeners, and not others.

I recently switched from some older Infinity RS monitors which I'd descibe as pretty accurate, to some B&W's which to my tastes are warmer and richer sounding - to me more "musical".

i think most of us can agree on the term "accuracy". "musical" refers to the sound of instruments.

all stereo systems are inaccurate and all cannot reproduce the timbre of instruments correctly.

what is instructive is to listen to a recording of an instrument that one has access to, such as an acoustic guitar. one can compare the stereo system's reproduction with the sound of the instrument.

if it is possible, record an acoustic guitar and compare the recording to the sound of the instrument--in the same room. such a comparison will provide an indication of a stereo system's musicality. this does not tell the whole story, as there are other instruments, ensembles and orchestras. comparisons with other instruments and ensembles may be impractical. a guitar is a good start.

musicality does not mean pleasing or less resolving than "accuracy". rather it refers to the characteristics of music,namely pitch, timbre and harmonics.

thus, if a stereo system is "musical" it reproduces the pitch, timbre and harmonics of instruments correctly. try accomplishing such a feat with commercially available recordings. have fun.