Do you play an instrument? Helps in speaker eval?

I record myself playing guitar and (sort of) singing in my listening room/home studio all the time. I have a high quality interface for my mics (apogee) and the record/playback chain is reasonably high quality for a home studio arrangement - other than the mics which are good, not great.

When I A/B myself performing, it never sounds right on playback. When I A/B my instructor, it's better, but never very impressive, relative to good commercial recordings. While I don't think such comparison is very useful in evaluating a system that will be used to play commercial recordings, I do think the playback quality differs audibly when you change out gear. I rotate speakers from time to time and, in the end, I'd call it one flavor of wrong vs another flavor of wrong.

FWIW, on the same basis, my guitar teacher thinks that the SQ of my system is the best he's ever heard.

I hear differences in cables, etc. in my tweaked and fussed over hifi, and the system is revealing enough to notice gigantic differences among all recordings...I doubt this is from a lifetime of playing music and hearing shows, it's more about listening closely and giving a crap. I'm sensitive to bad live acoustic guitar sound because it bugs me, so I've been on a never ending search for an acoustic pickup system that I like (I've owned too many that are just "OK")...and recently found one that feels good (LR Baggs "Anthem"). I think my experience just makes me more pissed when I'm listening to a show where the sound sucks, or a lame stereo someplace.

My kids play some instruments (Harp and so on...), their music teacher made some vinyl recordings in the 80's, brought them to my house and we played them ...the comment was: "Yes, that's it"
It was recorded in a small, professional studio with the instruments they still own today and use, the ambiance was in a way comparable to real life condition....I tried to buy more records as a time document but with digital age most disappeared ..

Drums and percussion. And I listen for how honest the toms sound - whether I can hear them being struck. Also, does the bass drum have its individual timbre? or does it just sound like a generic thump? Cymbals should have their own location and soundstage. I get frustrated when I hear cymbals disappear into a generic wash of sound, or compressed down to the point where the hi-hat is the same volume as the crash.

I've played clarinet since age 7, guitar and bass guitar since 14, took piano lessons, attended concerts (both acoustic and electric). Yes, I think it helps in evaluating speakers (or cables, etc) to play an instrument, and its fine to say there is only one "absolute" sound as reference (live, unamplified music). Here's the problem I have though when everyone is talking about an absolute reference standard....do you hear the same way I do, or anyone else for that matter? Who has presbycussis? Do you carry expectations from reading reviews in magazines or from word of mouth into your listening to different speakers or cable? Just saying there are many other factors that influence how we perceive music or equipment. Having played an instrument (s) is just one of them.