Musician vs. audiophile

I'm a life-long active musician - big band swing trumpet player:

http://hornsaplenty.org/

My wife is a professional classical violinist

http://temescalquartet.com/

We've both acoustic musicians and so we mostly listen to acoustic music and have a preference for real instruments to sound like themselves.  If I were you, I'd use acoustic instruments as a reference.

What finally brought our system fully together was adding in a miniDSP DDRC24 active crossover and DSP EQ.  After measuring the room and impulse response with the included DIRAC software, I set the target response to the Harman EQ curve.  That brought it all together and gave the system that final bit of true naturalness.  It took just the right amount of edge off the violin upper register and evened out the low end.

I don't know any of your gear, but you should expect a Best Buy demo system to be tweaked in such a way that it makes you go "Wow" without actually being a natural presentation.  Remember that stores like Best Buy sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Since someone else has already noted Jim Boyk's work, I'll note that, in additional to some very excellent recordings, he has a couple of resources that might be of interest to this group: 

The first is "To Hear Ourselves as Others Hear Us".  While primarily designed as a way for musicians to prepare for either practice or performance, Jim's stellar advice might be helpful in understanding how and why musicians (often) tend to hear differently that others.  Here's a link:

http://www.performancerecordings.com/tohear.html

The second, which might be more useful for/interesting to some here, is a CD entitled "Demonstration of Stereo Microphone Technique".  Other than a movie made by the Baldwin Piano Company a couple of decades ago, this is the only readily available source that I know of for getting a reasonably decent understanding of stereo microphone technique without investing a fortune in either time, money, or effort.  (Lots of YouTube stuff around this.  These two sources are unique.)  Here's a link:

http://shop.performancerecordings.com/product.sc;jsessionid=C0266FF96AD5EFB667F8CBAAF16F7554.p3plqsc...

Also, and only FWIW, in over 50 years of doing "concert" piano and studio recording work for a host of pianists, Jim is one of a handful of pianists who has a level of perception and control that allows him to assess and deal with incredibly minute variations in tuning, regulation, and voicing.  He brings that knowledge and experience to his writing and teaching in very accessible yet complete ways.

Hope that this information may be helpful.

Kind regards.

As to musicians and  possibility of being tone deaf I think Beethoven said it best 'Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.  Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.'  I think he has proved admirably that even having lost most of his hearing he created proven master pieces in music.

Musicians may not be a reliable source of information regarding audio systems since they may have diminished hearing due to hearing loss from being surrounded by high volume for extended periods of time.

Voicing is what it’s called and what you are up against.

It takes a lot of thought, time, money, trial, and error to get a system to work well together. That includes the room too. Personally I’ve experienced similar issues when moving to a new home. In my situation I bought another system that I run in another room.

I plan on moving eventually to a place where I can adapt or build a proper listening room. I think that we all would like that. Best of luck

Keep in mind that audiophiles listen and consume the product. Musicians, when they listen, spend a lot of time thinking about how they will produce the product. I have watched this happen dozens of times over the decades.