Musicality" in a system? What IS that ?

"That word 'musicality' is not a familiar word. It is a feeling for what is beautiful, for what is right."

A quote attributed to Albert Einstein (as recounted by physicist John Wheeler) concerning his remark that Niels "Bohr had the highest form of musicality in the sphere of science." Don

Djjd, thanks for sharing this wonderful quote with us. I agree with your definition of musicality, one could add.... and what is " in flow" , to add an inner rythm element to it on the time level, which adds very much to the "feeling of what is beautiful and what is right" as you say. Cheers,

Detlof, this has been an inspiring thread. IMHO, and borrowing liberally from Katharina, Frogman and others, musicality cannot exist without, first, the highest level of artistry. Whether the art is in physics (Djjd) or the creation and performance of music, the artist must have a natural emotional and intuitive understanding of the craft. We've all heard it -- it's what keeps us going and stirs our souls: The performances that are so seamless that is seems the artist is transparent and only something greater, the music, exists. Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughn come to mind in the blues genre. Once that happens, our amps and speakers are called on to deliver it in our homes. I don’t know whether the delivery of musicality occurs because of accurate nth harmonic reproductions, the accurate capture of natural echoes, a totally black background or just the right soundstaging. But it does require enough subtlety to capture the nuances that differentiate the great performances. Presumably, the audio reviewers use the music that stirs their souls when they test systems. So, since the musicality was already there in the performance being evaluated, the system can be tested for the faithful reproduction of the subtleties that define great musicality. As many suggest, it is simply a matter of whether you feel you are there -- you are sharing in the mastery of music. Maybe I'm rambling, but a system can get in the way of musicality but it cannot reproduce it if it isn't in the performance first. Great performances are differentiated from average ones by great differences in emotion and talent that are funneled to us in many small ways. The accurate capture of those small things is what counts. Since we are dealing in nuances and each system has tiny imperfections, we are guaranteed a life of tweaking and searching as audiophiles. But, it’s a happy search and there are a lot of gems found along the way. Again Detlof, thanks (I’ve pretty much left “musicality” linked to my emotional response – now, I’m wondering whether there aren’t some things that can be grasped more analytically so I can improve my system more intelligently. Not to worry, I can’t give up the emotional response :-))

Ozfly, thanks for so astutely pointing out again to us, what should be obvious really, but often isn't: Even the best system will not be musical, if the performance it tries to reproduce is not. PERIOD.

Ozfly, thanks for your beautiful post. To me you have said it all and have in fact made the synopsis I was still searching for to add to this thread. Thanks also to all other contributers. You've helped me tremendously in clearing my thoughts on this topic and have shown me emotionally that I am not alone in my quest for the beauty sublime and for the spiritual experience, often so profound, we call "musicality".