“It sounds more musical!” Ahh, those are words we all long to hear when they describe the sound of our system. Yet, what do they mean?
There’s a seemingly growing opposition to the use of the term musical as it applies to sound. How can something sound musical?
The pat answer, of course, comes from the original charter describing The Absolute Sound: “the sound of unamplified instruments and/or voices as heard in a natural, acoustic performance space”. When a hifi system achieves this lofty goal it is said to be musical.
So why all the hubbub about referring to a system as musical when it is simply shorthand for describing what TAS founder HP considered the holy grail? My guess is overuse.
Words convey meaning. They are all we have in language: placeholders for describing concepts.
Would it make more sense to pick something fresh to convey the TAS charter? How about bolive; symbolive; lacoustic; racoustic? These are simply made up words we assign meaning to, just like musical.
If we, as a group, decide it’s acceptable to use a word to describe a concept, then that works.
I, for one, will continue to use musical as a term to describe the sound of unamplified instruments and/or voices as heard in a natural, acoustic performance space.
If you would prefer single word terms like: μιούζικαλ, nā mele, musikalsk, موزیکال, музичний, מוזיקאַליש, be my guest. They all mean musical.
