I studied music for undergrad and I’m a classically trained musician (violin, piano). I played classical for years but mostly play world music and some pop/rock these days with electric violin and keyboard.
I agree with philbarone: Myself and the musicians I know are trained to listen to what’s going on in the actual music, and sort of filter out and ignore the sound quality of the recording. Great audio reproduction is interesting, but it’s so different from live music that it’s really its own thing. Some musicians care about that thing, but in my experience, most don’t.
Put another way, there’s every bit of music to hear and experience from a crappy radio vs. a great sound system. Articulation, pitch manipulation, tempo, instrument usage, and dynamic choices come through pretty well even on a static-ey AM station. Agreed you lose a huge amount of timbre and sound fidelity, but you don’t lose much if anything of the musical performance characteristics. Thus Victrolas and early radio were very lo-fi but still wonderful. If I really want to hear the timbre of an instrument or the subtleties of blend and hall characteristics, I want to hear it live.
I personally love both - the music itself, and the fascinating, dense depth of sound great audio systems can produce. But I think they’re very different things that don’t have to go together for people to enjoy one or the other.
I agree with philbarone: Myself and the musicians I know are trained to listen to what’s going on in the actual music, and sort of filter out and ignore the sound quality of the recording. Great audio reproduction is interesting, but it’s so different from live music that it’s really its own thing. Some musicians care about that thing, but in my experience, most don’t.
Put another way, there’s every bit of music to hear and experience from a crappy radio vs. a great sound system. Articulation, pitch manipulation, tempo, instrument usage, and dynamic choices come through pretty well even on a static-ey AM station. Agreed you lose a huge amount of timbre and sound fidelity, but you don’t lose much if anything of the musical performance characteristics. Thus Victrolas and early radio were very lo-fi but still wonderful. If I really want to hear the timbre of an instrument or the subtleties of blend and hall characteristics, I want to hear it live.
I personally love both - the music itself, and the fascinating, dense depth of sound great audio systems can produce. But I think they’re very different things that don’t have to go together for people to enjoy one or the other.