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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: Accuracy vs. Musicality (and YMMV)
Post Subject: Look at this photograph...Posted by Gargoyle on: 8/17/2024
...I promise no Nickleback.

 Paul S wrote:

For me, accuracy means fidelity to the recording. Taken alone, “accurate reproduction” might or might not make Music in one’s home,...

Paul SStick out tongue>gt;


This is a rational way to look at it. Recordings are just that, we can do our best to extract what we can from these recordings for better or worse.

A recording of a piano in a hall, will never sound like an actual piano in my room, why should it? A recording is reliant on the microphone selection, tastes of the microphone operator, reverberations of the room etc. The environment is part and parcel to the piano.

If you record a lone violin in your room,to play back in your room, perhaps then you can talk about how "real" something sounds.

Recordings are photographs.

"Accuracy" is a global term, implying fidelity.
The term "musicality" is of limited in utility when discussing reproduction if we don't even like or listen to the same music.

Musicality as an actual term is used in discussions for the types of distortion that guitar amplifiers make. It's not something that a HiFi person wants in any quantity. Perhaps used to describe the syrupy sound of some vintage receiver. The lesser of two evils sure if the option is odd order distortion. It's a borrowed phrase to use when you have nothing else.

It's about as useful as discussing "Accuracy vs manors", "Accuracy vs calligraphy" or "trustworthiness." Really, it's just salesmen talk for the naive.

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