Should music critics also be audiophiles?

Would be nice....audiophiles; not just gear jocks which often call themselves “audiophiles”.

“Nice“ because better reproduced sound CAN improve one’s ability to hear deeper into the performance. However, this assumes that the audiophile’s sense of what is “better” relates to the sound of live music. Otherwise, all bets are off; and, in a misguided attempt to make one’s system sound more “accurate” one can actually reduce the ability to hear deeper into the music and not just deeper into sound.

“Nice” and not necessarily great, or necessary, because anyone who has any business being a “music critic” doesn’t really need anything beyond acceptable sound to make a good assessment of the musical merit of a performance. How well he is able to communicate this is a different story. Listen to the music on an old scratchy 78 rpm recording of Jascha Heifetz or Louis Armstrong. No problem whatsoever hearing the brilliance of their playing and how it might hold up compared to others’.

Still, great sound is a beautiful thing.

Let 'em rip.  Loving music to the point where you make a living listening to it is a natural companion to being an audiophile. I've also always been kind of at a loss concerning musicians that don't seem to give a whit about the quality of the recorded sound they let themselves be assaulted with. Is it because their ears are so brilliantly tuned and their sense of aesthetics is so august that they consider all recorded music to be nothing more than a shadow of the real thing? Is it because they've all gone deaf because of the noise?

It's because they get more than their fill at work.  They get to be professional musicians because they practice way more than they feel like.