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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
chicagoblue1977's avatar
chicagoblue1977
224 posts
 
@gano now that is one funny post. Mick is a talented drummer but he is not Ginger Baker, Art Blakey, or Max Roach. 
My son is an accomplished drummer and percussionist. He played in College in the Jazz band and percussion ensemble. He has sat in on sessions with Snarky Puppy and Trombone Shorty. He knows sound and guess what his stereo system just sucks! He is at Norte Dame now earning his PHD and said when he is not working he is in the studio playing. He has no time for our hobby.

You also have done a nice job alienating 1/16 of the members here and I love it “rich douche bags” lol. I am not wealthy but I made my choice and have a modest system that set us back maybe $20k and love it. Could also care less what Jeff Beck or Buddy Guy listen to I want to listen to them.

Good listening.
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jjss49
6,612 posts
 
1) you can have money and not be a douchebag, you can be a douchebag and not have money (though obviously, extravagant d-bags call the most attention to themselves) ... but money and character are pretty much independent variables as far as my experience goes, just like some poor folk sure ain’t nice folk

2) that being said, in my travels, i’ve found that trained musicians tend to value the realistic tonality/timbre in music reproduction rather than more ’hifi’ attributes like imaging, detail retrieval and so on

3) many working musicians are indeed busy and unless they are lucky and talented enough to be famous and successful, most don’t usually have the money to pour into a high end hifi system

4) those who are, are known to have some pretty excellent systems, like keith jarrett, fred hersch, burt bacharach, yoyo ma, gregory porter, tom harrell ...

5) but many don’t, presumably for the same reasons that many successful chefs eat very basic, elemental food at home... when something is your work, you don’t want to do a lot more of it much for pleasure

6) this may be of interest, if curious ... https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/great-photos-of-musicians-with-hi-fi-gear.941493/
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edcyn
1,876 posts
 
Certainly, there's got to be exceptions galore, but I've found over the years that musicians usually aren't audiophiles. Mostly they either spurn or just don't care about the accuracy of reproduction.  They'd rather spend their time and money elsewhere. They'd rather be playing/practicing than obsessing over things like soundstaging or spitty sibilants. 

With perhaps just one exception, every single one of my old rock-and-roll bandmates was more fixated on how they themselves played or sounded  on a recording than on anything else. How's MY tone? Shouldn't I be louder? Probably the only musician I ever hung around with who had a genuine appreciation for fidelity is Todd Garfinkle of MA Recordings.
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