Musical or Accurate?

[Deang]

We haven't had a discussion about this in a long time around here, maybe it's time to revisit it. So, we have these two different kind of sounds -- how would you describe the difference, and which do you prefer?

[chops]

I would say that musical means a driver that is capable of "keeping up" with the music, as in dynamics and rythm. A prime example of that is the K-55V driver. It can pump out the volume when needed and it can definately keep up the pace, but we all know at certain points throughout its bandwidth, it's not accurate. (as in honky and/or shrilly)

In a perfect world, I'd much rather have an "accurate" driver. To me, this would mean a driver that reproduces all of the tones within its bandwidth as close as possible to the real thing, keeping all the detail in tact.

Did I pass? [:^)]

[colterphoto1]

Thanks Dean, stir up the pot again. I'll bite.

I think this has been brought up a bit in some other recent topics and I believe LarryC is keen on this take on things. Some of this might be plagarized from him.

The difficulty for most of us is in our Experience with things musical. Unless one is intimately familiar with several instruments via mastering them, or has a vast history of listening to LIVE music, how can there be any reference to what is either musical or accurate (representative of the live instruments and recording technology) ?

In essence, most of us are guessing at what a violin, piano, Les Paul, tenor voice sounds like. It might sound 'life-like' to the ear, but how can one pronounce it accurate or musical without a baseline knowledge of what the thing sounded like before the speakers, tubes, preamp, LP or CD, etc?

I recall in the days of early electronic music (Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk) occasionally the artist would specify the playback equipment used in the studio during performance/recording so the listener could exactly duplicate the experience as the musican intended. With purely electronic music, it had never been waves in the air prior to the listening experience so there was no possible way a listener would know what it was 'supposed' to sound like,

I posted a thread in 2ch about a Steve Howe solo guitar concert I recently attended. It gave me great appreciation for many types of acoustic guitars and the differences in their sounds. I plan on taking on many more of these more acoustical listening experiences as part of my musical education.

[oldtimer]

I was amazed at how Airto's stick on cymbal sound live was so much like that from the recordings when I listened to the vinyl through my Forte II's. I think accurate is musical. Colter makes some good points about baseline knowledge. if you have not heard a lot of live music and/or been there doing that you might not know what instruments sound like. Many seem to think that electric bass should sound more defined than acoustic, at least at the attack phase of the note, but all of my experience suggests otherwise.

[Deang]

What kind of live music? Which instruments? Should have heard me trying to describe the difference between a Les Paul and a Strat to Al K. a couple of months ago -- the loon listens to piano and opera! It was like we were speaking in different languages to each other. We both knew what accurate was -- but only as it related to the instruments we were personally familiar with.

http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/109/index6.html

[joshnich]

I judge based on the ability to reproduce acoustic instruments. Horns, guitar, voice, piano, drums, string bass etc. If it is an accurate representation of the acoustic instruments that is my definition of musical. I do not really think that being able to reproduce a synthesizer is much of test. I am never sure what it (or other amplified instruments) was meant to sound like in the first place! I know if the sound of an electric guitar compares to my telecaster and twin reverb but at what settings?

J

[Parrot]

If you're aiming for accuracy to the original performance, forget it. Reasonable semblance to reality, yes, but THE TRUTH, no way.

The original performance goes through microphones, microphone preamps, a mixer, and a recorder of some kind, just to name the big items. Then you've got a producer and engineers who change the recording to their tastes. Then you've got the final mastering engineer, who is not listening to the recording with anything remotely like what you'll be listening to it with.

The best you can hope for is what Steve Hoffman calls the breath of life, which is when a recording played back can help to create the illusion that a performer is actually alive in your listening room. The listener has to suspend disbelief to experience the breath of life, of course, unless he's psychotic.

[pauln]

My favorite kind of thread... What does this mean? Who is qualified to discern? How is the measurement performed? Which takes precedence over the other? What kinds of equipment tend to provide it?

Musical

To me, musical means musical with reference to MUSIC. Musical means fast and dynamic as stated above, also harmonically correct, natural instruments and voice sounding realistic, overall good blending of different sounds, vibrant tones, good body in loud passages, detail in soft passages, extended listening without fatigue or suspecting something is missing or added to the presentation. Forgetting about the system and being drawn into a convincing illusion that is a joy to experience.

Musicians and some audiophiles with exposure to live performance may be more qualified to judge, especially we who have a background in music theory, decades of writing and performing music, play numerous instruments, and have perfect relative or absolute pitch. On the other hand, a truly musical system will have a charater that almost everyone should be able to recognise even if they can not explain quite what it is.

The measurement is performed by attentive focused listening to the sound as music - not the music as sound.

Musical trumps accurate, always.

Best found in systems of vinyl, tubes, and horns.

Accurate

To me, accurate is a misleading attribute because it implies a categorical comparison with reference to some external objective norm, usually a non-musical electronic performance specification. It depends on an assumptive link between the abstract measurement and the phenomenological sensation of the music. Depending on the specifications used for the normal reference, this might sound like anything, which sort of goes againt the sense of accurate.

Those qualified to make these measurements may have a technical background but do not necessarily know anything about music, may not even be music listeners or musicians. They may be functionally deaf or just have a tin ear (tone deaf). These tests may never even involve playing or listening to music.

The measurements in some stages may be performed directly with no sounds or music, other stages may use non-musical test tones and sweeps, etc., the assumption being that the test performance measures predict how the system will produce music.

Accurate trumps musical. They actually think that accurate means musical (the assumption). The stress is on music as sound instead of sound as music.

Tend to find over-engineered solutions using modern technology (CDs, solid state, high power, low efficiency (or strange new things like the high efficiency TriPath amps).

Permutations - Who is satisfied?

This is the tricky part. The original question was posed as a predicate without a subject - so what was the real question? Was it "What sounds the best, musical or accurate?". Or was it, "What tests the best? What sells the best? What is the best?".

I'll go with what sounds the best...

If it is musical and accurate - Both sides will be happy, Musical will say it sound good and Accurate will be pleased with the specs, may or may not like the sound.

If its musical but not accurate - Musical will be happy, Accurate will decry the specs but may or may not like the sound.

Its Not musical but its accurate - Musical will not be happy, Accurate will like the spec and may or may not like the sound.

Its not musical or accurate - Musical will not like the sound, Accurate will not like the specs, but may or may not like the sound.

Final Score

Musical likes two, dislikes two, result is 2 out of 4

Accurate has no means to judge and goes 50/50 in all cases, result is 2 out of 4

But its not a draw, Musical knows when he is right about the sound, Accurate has no foundation and is lost.

[colterphoto1]

Thanks Dean, stir up the pot again. I'll bite.

I think this has been brought up a bit in some other recent topics and I believe LarryC is keen on this take on things. Some of this might be plagarized from him. EDIT (I'd written this earlier, and luckily copied before posting, as it bombed. After reading Paul's post, I think we have similar arguements).END EDIT

The difficulty for most of us is in our Experience with things musical. Unless one is intimately familiar with several instruments via mastering them, or has a vast history of listening to LIVE music, how can there be any reference to what is either musical or accurate (representative of the live instruments and recording technology) ?

In essence, most of us are guessing at what a violin, piano, Les Paul, tenor voice sounds like. It might sound 'life-like' to the ear, but how can one pronounce it accurate or musical without a baseline knowledge of what the thing sounded like before the speakers, tubes, preamp, LP or CD, etc?

I recall in the days of early electronic music (Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk) occasionally the artist would specify the playback equipment used in the studio during performance/recording so the listener could exactly duplicate the experience as the musican intended. With purely electronic music, it had never been waves in the air prior to the listening experience so there was no possible way a listener would know what it was 'supposed' to sound like,

I posted a thread in 2ch about a Steve Howe solo guitar concert I recently attended. It gave me great appreciation for many types of acoustic guitars and the differences in their sounds. I plan on taking on many more of these more acoustical listening experiences as part of my musical education.

[joshnich]

If you're aiming for accuracy to the original performance, forget it. Reasonable semblance to reality, yes, but THE TRUTH, no way.

The original performance goes through microphones, microphone preamps, a mixer, and a recorder of some kind, just to name the big items. Then you've got a producer and engineers who change the recording to their tastes. Then you've got the final mastering engineer, who is not listening to the recording with anything remotely like what you'll be listening to it with.

The best you can hope for is what Steve Hoffman calls the breath of life, which is when a recording played back can help to create the illusion that a performer is actually alive in your listening room. The listener has to suspend disbelief to experience the breath of life, of course, unless he's psychotic.

Paul

I think you are absolutley correct. However there are times when I have the stereo on and I m in the other room and I can swear that it's live piano being played. Maybe its the breath of life...or more likely the leap of faith!

J

[sunburnwilly]

[|-)]

[mike stehr]

Musiccurate..........

[colterphoto1]

Parrot sez : "The best you can hope for is what Steve Hoffman calls the breath of

life, which is when a recording played back can help to create the

illusion that a performer is actually alive in your listening room."

very well put Mssr. Parrot- that is something farily measurable and gives hope that there is an attainable goal to all this.

As in 'yesterday I could have sworn that Keith Emerson was in my garage'[]

Michael

[consistent]

Some interesting observations.

I guess musical or accurate is a bit like how you like your car to drive: pleasurable or accurate! I'll pick accurate every time becasue to me accurate implies 'pleasurable' same with music.

What is accuracy? As some of you have pointed out that music, by the time we hear it, has been played with or pumped through a system that may alter it from its original source. Even after listening to many live concerts then listening to a chamber orchestra, a small jazz ensemble or even a rock group in a good room without amplification or tricks, you will know there is a difference. Even the room & listening position is capable of changing the dynamics and sometimes this 'live' music may not sound as good as that which is played with or amplified.

Who knows what's real, the technicians will always disagree with the audio lover? Leave it up to your ears, if they are working well they will be 'accurate' and will always be your best judge for 'musical', we are born this way.

Cheers

[maxg]

Pauln,

Superb post - really liked it.

I dont think I have ever come across this question in quite this form before - it does seem like a question comparing much the same thing to me.

I have answered the question musical Vs detailed before - and experienced such on my own systems over the years.

For that question it is a matter of getting the overall picture the music paints without looking at the brushstrokes Vs a detailed analysis of the picture, bit by bit.

There is room for both IMHO - what is your poison?

[PrestonTom]

Ahhhh, A difficult question.

Logically they should be the same: An accurate reproduction of musical instruments should in fact also be musical. BTW, I agree with Parrot that this goal is at most a direction and may never be fully achieved.

I think the two goals differ when you are dealing with recorded music that has a great deal of "engineering" involved (compression etc). In this case an accurate system (which is my preference) can sound terrible with a poor recording. While a "musical" system, can be more tolerable. Keep this thought in mind when you listen to other set ups. It helps in understanding why folks have prioritized some things and not others when they have tweaked their system.

When you get into the world of Home Theater, the issues are very different. Many systems deliberately exaggerate the bass and emphasize certain spatial aspects of the recording. Here the goal seems to be the "wow" factor.

Of course I have completely ignored which aspects of accuracy may be the most important for the individual. The list is long and we may not all agree on their rank ordering of importance: smooth mid-range (esp the vocals), accurate bass, slam factor, low distortion in the bass, the spatial spread of the instruments, the precise definition of their individual positions, detail in the music that lets you hear the "mechanics" of the instrument or vocalist, overall frequency response, smooth mid to high response to give that "airy feel" or ambinece, that part of the mid-range that conveys the "brass" quality of a horn section, etc, etc.

One thing that amazes me are the comments that folks make when they actually listen to live music (esp unamplified music in a good venue) and this can include simple presentations, like a church choir. Folks are not used to: 1) hearing bass that is not augmented by some distrotion or exaggeration, 2) strings that now seem to have a slight edge or "skreechy" sound, 3) brass that now seems to have a bit of "shrillness" or honkiness about it, 4) the degree of reverberation introduced by the concert hall (even a the pleasant ambience of a good hall).

Assuming that the environment is not too bad and the instruments are played competently, this is real music, this is musical (although is may not be as "lush" or as smooth as we think it "ought to be").

Accurately reproducing that authentic experience requires an appreciation of the "reference" condition. Although we can get close on some of the aspects of the entire sound experience, realistically the best we can probably expect is to be able close our eyes and imagine that we are almost there.

Good luck,

-Tom

[Parrot]

Paul

I think you are absolutley correct. However there are times when I have the stereo on and I m in the other room and I can swear that it's live piano being played. Maybe its the breath of life...or more likely the leap of faith!

Definitely! That's exactly what you want. But suspending disbelief comes in because we know that The Beatles aren't really playing live in our living room. But if you can turn off your logical brain and get into the groove, you've got it made.

[Paladin]

I agree the most with what Parrot said.

The other big thing that is problematic, is how the music is recorded and where. You can go listen to a rock concert but when you buy the album...chances are the group was confined into a recording studio where everyone was mic-ed up and some guy at a mixer created the final sound of the recording. The only way to get close is to obtain a good recording of live music in a concert hall or other realistic venue or set up. To obtain a good whiff of that "breath of life" you'd need to record the musicians properly, with them set up the way they would perfom for a live concert. Some of the albums CD and Vinyl I prefer the most are either live or were recorded with a high level of care taken in making and processing the recording (like Chesky Records, Burmeister, or Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab).

I think speakers can produce a musical soundfield, and a nearly accurate one depending on the rig...but like Parrot said...not accurately reproduce exactly live conditions.

I recently posted about an Evelyn Glennie CD I have. I listened to it on my RB-81's and have heard it on 'stat speakers too. It's a very live and transparent recording. I had numerous "breath of life" moments with it when I could visualize exactly what she was doing, especially since I'd describe my RB-81's as very "accurate" and detailed "speakers" to say the least...as are my Dad's 'stats... But I've seen her live, and the recording played back, while very good, was not exactly the same as being there.

I belive that Mr. Klipsch commented on evaluating speakers in a DFH article. I belive the metaphor was comparing speakers to eachother was like measuring wood with a rubber yardstick. You have to listen to live music to determine the virtual reality factor of a speaker system.

[Deang]

Good posts. Several comments caught my attention:

Chops: "To me, this would mean a driver that reproduces all of the tones within its bandwidth as close as possible to the real thing, keeping all the detail intact."

I strongly associate accuracy with detail. "Analytical" also comes to mind.

Colterphoto1: "In essence, most of us are guessing at what a violin, piano, Les Paul, tenor voice sounds like. It might sound 'life-like' to the ear, but how can one pronounce it accurate or musical without a baseline knowledge of what the thing sounded like before the speakers, tubes, preamp, LP or CD, etc?"

Most of us have heard these various instruments in a live setting don't you think? Now, I can't tell you the difference between two different types or make of violin or piano, but I know what those instruments sound like in a general way. Now, I can tell the difference between a Les Paul and Strat (or their varients), and it doesn't matter what you're playing them through or how the knobs are set, and in most cases what kind of pedal is used. I mean, the pickups just sound different. The only exception here is if they are being played through stacks of processors -- which is becoming more popular with the younger guys.

oldtimer: "I think accurate is musical..."

Joshnich: "If it is an accurate representation of the acoustic instruments that is my definition of musical..."

Said more than once, I believe a couple of others mentioned this too. Sure, if something is "musical", than it is "accurate". This is the technically correct way of understanding it. However, I'm thinking more along the lines of how the two words are used to describe sound in the classic sense. For example: Accurate sound used to mean a sound that was very detailed and on the lean side. Brighter sounding systems used to be described this way. "Musical" used to mean something that sounds warmer and maybe a bit veiled. We associated a musical system with one that was "colored". The "accurate" sounding system seemed best suited to lower level listening, and some of us felt these type systems mandated shorter listening sessions since they were also prone to bringing on listening fatigue (like Tom pointed out at the end of his post -- the sound of live instruments isn't always "pleasing" to the ear). The "musical" system, though not as detailed and analytical sounding, tended to draw out the listening sessions, and seemed to be more "engaging" on an emotional level.

So, maybe the problem here is with the two words, and maybe it is best to dispense with them. So, let's try the question a different way:

Do you prefer your horn system with a lot of detail and somewhat on the bright side, or do you like it warmer, and a bit lush? Do you want it to sound "live", or do you prefer it with a bit of color, with the transients rounded off somewhat? Wide open and clean, or with a thin veil and some richness? Hard truth, or white lie? You all know what I'm talking about here -- so don't go intellectual on me.

[sunnysal]

words are always at the core of this debate.

accuracy implies measurement because accurate implies reference against something. hence I equate this with objectivists.

musical implies subjectivity because what is musical is a taste/opinion by its nature. subjectivist then.

you cannot measure musicality, you can measure accuracy.

Which is right? subjectivist or objectivist, musical versus accurate? I will say this:

I think we all can agree that our methodology to measure accuracy in music reproduction is less than perfect. hamronic disortion, IMD, frequency reponse all just hint at what true aacuracy entales in music reproduction. for me this is one strike against accuracy as a single judge, a strike against the objectivist camp. there is something nice and easy about basing ones decision on numbers, you can compare easily, etc. but the measurements are imperfect and incomplete.

No one can argue musicality, it is a personal issue. what is musical to me may not be musical to you. a weakness is that this is not comcrete nor easy to compare. I am of the opinion that this is at the core of why we have such a WIDE variety of equipment options available to us (LPS, CD, SACDS, Tubes, SS, etc., etc.). it simply reflects different tastes, not a linear path towards "perfection" in music reproduction.

I like to think I reside in the middle ground, I like to utilize components that demoonstrate competancy in the objective measurements that are currently available but I never keep a component in my system that measures well and sounds bad. so I tend to give the final word to my subjective, musical side.

not everyone does this. I have been to people's houses down here who have expended great wealth in compiling systems that should be the SOTA response to music reproduction from an objetivist POV, all measure as good as can be found at this time. On occasion I found the systems lacking in musicality (and even had the owners comment on the systems lack of musicality). perhaps most of us have had this same experience...having the dissapointment of acquiring the "best" component but the result being it not providing us the best musical experience...

to be a bit cynical; some others are convinced that the combination of the best measuring components HAVE to result in the best sound and when confronted by there own dissapointment in the musical results they search far a wide (and expensively) for the culprit...that damn cable, that damn outlet, the damn power company, THE DAMN RECORDING, the recording format...all in a constant cycle of purchase and change...never happy...those guys are out there believe me.

I am happy with the beatles played on my system. from time to time I wonder if I can improve the sound, make it more realistic...I spend a bit on trying to upgrade components, I choose based on performance specs I DECIDE based on whether it enhances my subjective opinion of the musical result.

I am, in the end, resigned to being a subjectivist, who listens to music and bases my final judgements on how musical is the result from my changing playback system. I still keep my eyes and ears open for guidance on candidates to get me even greater enjoyment from my system this guidance mostly comes from the objectivist camp, posited in measurements. compared objectivey with other components, but the musical equipment stays in my system.

warm regards, tony