What is a "Musical" Recevier ?

[dillihifi]

Dear All,

This has me being intrigued at times. I have heard umpteen members talk about the "Musical" Receiver. What is that in the receiver that becomes musical. Do we not look for faithful reproduction of the recorded sound. If the receiver is able to faithfully reproduce the same is it a "Musical" receiver ? Some receivers are stated to be better for movies. Whether it means that the receiver introduces any thing that makes it more pleasurable while movie watching ? Should we not look for a receiver that faithfully reproduces the input ?

 

[square_wave]

The problem -AV Receivers due to umpteen issues related to engineering (one can write a very long treatise on this) and quality of parts cannot reproduce sound faithfully.

The practical solution - Some manufacturers find workarounds within the budget to choose parts and design protocols which does not screw up the sound as much as other do. Hence they reproduce the sound "slightly better" than others and hence the music sounds a bit better on them.

There are of course extremely expensive " multi purpose sound amplifiers / processors " available. I have not considered them in this discussion.

 

[subhash]

Most recievers are made to reproduce multichannel sound for movies which they do well ,when it comes to pure 2 channel music most (in fact all) recievers tend to be dull, lacks the refinement / excitement what a pure 2 channel stereo amp will out put

IMO its hard to find a true musical AVR, the pre amp section of the all crampped AVR for music playback is usually suspect

 

[santhosh]

In addition to what others have said, if the music reproduced by an AVR in direct mode is somewhat tolerable/listenable in comparison to non-musical AVRs, then the AVR is considered musical.

Observation: These "musical" AVRs are usually recommended to members who are looking to buy an AVR and they say their movie to music ratio is 50:50, 40:60 or 60:40hyeah:.

 

[dillihifi]

Well if the music reproduced by the AVR is tolerable in the music mode will it not mean that the AVR is reproducing the original recordings more faithfully than the others. Further, if the AVR is reproducing the original scores more faithfully will it not reproduce the movie tracks with the same level of transparency ? or does the circuitry which decodes the multichannel sound adds colour to the sound ? If in the opinion of our members will those AVRs which sound slightly better for music reproduction will also sound slightly better for movie playback too ? Or is it due to the fact that these AVRs in the direct mode have a different circuitry for more faithful reproduction of music.

 

[Imrahn]

^^see, when i'm looking for a musical receiver, I would prefer an avr that is 'relatively' neutral and transparent,the keyword here being 'relatively'.But when my needs are more movie oriented, I don't look for either of the above parameters in the audition, but rather on the dynamism,punch or simply put, the 'slam' the avr can provide to the speakers,as much as the movie genre demands.

 

[anm]

I would say a musical receiver would be one that has front pre-outs , options to shutdown video circuit/ display vfd etc (pure direct mode I guess) and let the signal pass through to either internal left/ right amps, or to external power amp.

 

[santhosh]

Dillihifi,
Just curious if you are OK with the term "musical" to be used while describing stereo gear. Or do you prefer to hear words like truthful, honest, real, original, as-is etc?

 

[NetFreak]

does the circuitry which decodes the multichannel sound adds colour to the sound ?

Yes, there can be two kind of "colors"

1. Intentional (E.g. 7 channel decode of stereo, Equalizers etc)
2. Unintentional (E.g. Noise in Analogue circuits)

AVRs by default intentionally modify signals and these are sold as "features". From Yamaha's marketing pages:

When it comes to doing the sophisticated coding required to enable their surround sound programs, Yamaha really goes the extra mile literally. Yamaha does not simply rely on general guidelines in developing particular types of decoding. Instead, Yamaha sends their audio engineers to the actual venues, such as the Concert Hall in Vienna, Austria, The Roxy Theater in L.A. or Angel Stadium in Anaheim, CA.

There, on-site, the Yamaha engineers take sophisticated sound measurements of the acoustical environments in those very venues. It only is then that they set about creating Yamaha's surround sound programs, after calibrating them to precisely replicate the given venue's real-world sound experience. In other words, when you're listening to a favorite album in the Rock Concert mode, you're enjoying the exact same surround sound experience as that afforded by the actual Roxy Theater in L.A., the stadium effects of Angel stadium, the rich ambiance of the Vienna Concert Hall and so on.

Or is it due to the fact that these AVRs in the direct mode have a different circuitry for more faithful reproduction of music.

In "direct" mode, all intentional processing is tuned off.

E.g. if a Blu Ray disc has 5.1 sound, AVR would not convert it to 7.1. AVR would not apply any correction to signals for changing height of dialogues, it would not support "Quiet Mode a.k.a. Night Mode" which suppresses all audio effects other than dialogs.

In this mode, there is no intentional coloring of signals by AVR.

Now regarding Unintentional coloring:

This is a function of price. High quality components in AVR (Or standalone) amplifier would have very low noise. And quality of components would be better in higher end models.

But even mid level AVRs like Yamaha 667/ Denon 1910 have decent quality components which are on same level as standalone "digital" amplifiers.

 

[entsurgeon]

but what exactly is a musical amp??? when or why do you call a system/amp/speakers musical??

 

[entsurgeon]

Bump....!!!

 

[Spidey]

If musicality is thought of in broad sense , I think following receivers are musical in downwards order

:Arcam receiver, NAD, marantz, denon, yamaha, onkyo.

This is in very broad and relative sense for receivers.
Of course, multi ch processors are in their own league.

I wont know where to put Emotiva receivers in musicality as I have to hear them more.


Regards

 

[Hiten]

Dear All,

This has me being intrigued at times. I have heard umpteen members talk about the "Musical" Receiver. What is that in the receiver that becomes musical. Do we not look for faithful reproduction of the recorded sound. If the receiver is able to faithfully reproduce the same is it a "Musical" receiver ? Some receivers are stated to be better for movies. Whether it means that the receiver introduces any thing that makes it more pleasurable while movie watching ? Should we not look for a receiver that faithfully reproduces the input ?

but what exactly is a musical amp??? when or why do you call a system/amp/speakers musical??

musical sound -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
Also a thread by Keith... very helpful to describe sound
http://www.hifivision.com/articles-guides/7452-cheat-sheet-terms-used-oddiophiles.html

@ dillihifi :

Do we not look for faithful reproduction of the recorded sound.

People disagree on what is faithful. Generally It is said that system should reproduce sound as if you were in a live orchestra. There was interesting debate in forum about this. But I can't find that thread.

 

[shershah]

Generally It is said that system should reproduce sound as if you were in a live orchestra. There was interesting debate in forum about this. But I can't find that thread.

what was the title of that thread? I would like to know, if you do not mind?

 

[dillihifi]

I think the title of the thread was -

Amps in AVRs Vs dedicated Amps

 

[Hiten]

what was the title of that thread? I would like to know, if you do not mind?

I don't remember. But will search and post here shershahbhai.

 

[Lakozy Electronics]

NAD AVRs are considered Musical AVRs and even their starting Models like T747 proves it, to understand this better we performed a small test at our Demo room when Rana Kirti of our forum came for auditions. We played the same music through NAD 356BEE on PSB Image B6 as well as NAD T747 and to our surprise T747 came almost 90% close to the Integrated amps performance.

Ashish