Do Physicists Or Musicians Design Better Speakers?

a musician friend of mine who taught me a great deal about jazz back in art school 25 yrs. ago, had a really cheapo stereo system with "crazy eddie" speakers - believe it or not.. really bad speakers.. his table was'nt too bad, a B&O. Whenever I suggested getting better speakers or amp, he replied to the effect that as long as he was getting just a basic reproduction he did not care to improve upon that.. frankly all the musicians I've known since then have mostly had the same opinion.. their stereo's are basic and they don't care for better.

Do people who read music make better musicians in any sense other than when actually reading a score comes into play?
Having played with many musicians who didn't know how to read music, the overall relevance/similarity is striking.
Some people have the music/design in them, if not taught at the so called professional level.
Who can name a rather famous contemporary guitarist who can't read music?

I realize it's different, but the similarities seem more than relevant to me, begging the question, "Who has the music in them?"

Larry

a lot of musicians have crap audiophile systems

And a lot of musicians have great systems. They just aren't mixing here. You can ask the manufacturers, however, and you'll find out that all of them have sold gear to some very famous players.

but I find a lot of musicians literally hear the note and focus more on the musical note (was that g or a flat) than the tonal qualities

If this were true, they could record an album on the first take, simply by following the recipe. It doesn't happen that way. As well, you're not accounting for the hundreds of albums produced and engineered by playing members of the band. From Donald Fagen to Bob Mould, from Neil Young to Frank Zappa, David Gilmour to Vinnie Paul, etc. ad infinitem, tonal quality and nuance are all they care about. Why do you think Stuart Copeland is so recognizable? Or Alex Lifeson? It has nothing to do with getting the notes right. An electronic tuner takes care of that. It's ALL about tonal quality and tonal signature, all of which are crucial in the final determination as to whether a recording is ready to be mixed, or a speaker is doing its job.

You cannot have one without the other, unless you only wish to appeal to non-musician audiophiles, most of whom would have no idea what recording studio playback sounds like.

"a lot of musicians have crap audiophile systems"
Well thats just because they invest most of their income in their own instruments. Then maybe on some recording gear
and in general muscicians salries are on the low side.

I'm friends with a physicist who for years was lead vocalist in a band. He now works as a professional audio consultant, mainly for prosound applications (his clientele is spread across four continents). He is very good friends with a concert pianist. The pianist has come to respect the physicist's ears so much that he won't release a recording until his physicist friend has heard and evaluated it.

I'm also friends with an aerospace engineer and former concert musician whose runs a rather successful loudspeaker company, mentioned several times in the latest edition of The Absolute Sound as either best or among the best speakers at CES (and he doesn't advertise so there's no back-scratching going on).

Both of these individuals design loudspeakers with physics and psychoacoustics as their primary tools. Neither of them design "by ear", and for listening evaluations both use other people rather than themselves.

In my opinion the key is knowing what sets of measurements, along with their proper interpretation, will correlate with human hearing perception. A musician may well know how to recognize when it sounds right, but when it doesn't (and the first try never does) how does he accurately identify and resolve the problem? The most interesting loudspeakers in my opinion are consistently those employing intelligent acoustic and psychoacoustic solutions, and that's the province of science rather than art.