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what system musicians prefer? Do they care?

I have never aspired to be a musician, although I am very artistic.  I am bad at singing and never enjoyed dabbling at playing an instrument. But I enjoy listening to music tremendously and I always wondered if being a musician would improve my experience as a listener. It seems to me that musicians (good ones) would have a lot more expertise in sound, what is good quality sound, a good system, a high fidelity speaker.... but I have never seen any proof. Am I just imagining it? Are good musicians mediocre listeners? Are they not obsessed with good sound? Any musicians out there to comment?
One example I know is the  Cambridge Soundworks Mick Fleetwood Speaker System, which I finally purchased last year, I knew my collection would not be complete without it. It's evidence of great talents crossing paths: a  genious speaker designer Henry Kloss, and Mick Fleetwood, one of the greatest drummers of the century (and  the previous one). But I don't see musicians weighing in on what are good systems are, how much is it worth spending and what to focus on. It's much more like rich douchebags bragging about the price of their systems on these forums. 
gano
Post removed 
cd318
2,636 posts
 
@frogman “tonally bleached out”. Great description that I use often. “Gray”. Can’t stand that type of sound. Instrumental sounds have a lot of natural color.

I borrowed that off @prof. He has written some excellent posts here and is usually very precise when it comes to describing timbre and tonal colour reproduction.

Even after nearly 40 years of listening to various systems I still think that instrumental colour is one of the most difficult things for any of them to reproduce.

So many of them nowadays just cannot get close. Or even seem to try.

As much as it pains me to have to give Apple any credit I cannot fault the iPad 2 on the grounds of failing to reproduce timbre and instrumental colour.

There's an app on there that features some  60 musical instruments that my kids would sometimes play with.

The tonality would be almost uncanny, and that tiny speaker could certainly put many a full size one to shame.
daveyf's avatar
daveyf
3,115 posts
 

I'm an ex pro studio musician. My experience is that most musicians have little to no idea that high end audio even exists. Most who do know, are also very put off by the prices that a lot of the gear demands. But, I know of a few other ex-pros and current pros who have decent systems. Not systems that are mega high end, but systems that tend to be more middle of the line, but also sound quite musical. 

ghdprentice's avatar
ghdprentice
9,468 posts
 

@daveyf 

 

+1 Audiophile musicians are about as rare among musicians as are audiophiles among the general population. 

gano OP
750 posts
 

@daveyf +2

many of my neighbors are musicians - at various levels, some play at big events in town. None of them care about hifi, aside from having some device that plays music. Most of them, at best, have active speakers. I can understand that connecting with music does not require fancy equipment,.

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