Several Maggie owners among the Classical musicians that I know, johnto.
I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience with Classical or Jazz musicians and their audio systems, but as I said previously, I know many who have systems that are far better than “crap”. Now, it is true that many musicians don’t have a lot of discretionary income, but many successful working musicians manage to afford decent sound. Of course, one man’s good audio may be someone else’s crap.
I agree with phasemonger. I think there is sometimes a tendency to equate the “sound” of music with music itself. Musicians listen primarily for performance values (the music) and not just the sound of the music. I disagree with the comments made suggesting that high end equipment is absolutely necessary for the appreciation of performance values. It may be for some listeners, but not for all. Of course, we’ll chosen (!!!) high end equipment makes those performance values more obvious, but the “necessity” for this has to be weighed against a given listener’s ability to hear and appreciate them if a general comment about the necessity can be made.
Please don’t misunderstand, I love my high end audio toys. However, while I enjoy reveling in the huge soundstage and extended frequency response of my main audio rig, there is seldom a time when I feel I missed the musical message of the performance listening to the same recording over my car’s radio. I think it’s possible to become too dependent on the ear candy aspect of high end audio. How many times have we read a comment by an audio reviewer (!) to the effect that component X or Z finally made it possible to tell that the instrument playing on a particular recording was an English Horn and not an oboe? The difference between those two sounds is obvious even on a “crappy radio”.
Personally, I feel a worthy goal should be to always strive to be a better listener of the music as much as of the sound of it.
I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience with Classical or Jazz musicians and their audio systems, but as I said previously, I know many who have systems that are far better than “crap”. Now, it is true that many musicians don’t have a lot of discretionary income, but many successful working musicians manage to afford decent sound. Of course, one man’s good audio may be someone else’s crap.
I agree with phasemonger. I think there is sometimes a tendency to equate the “sound” of music with music itself. Musicians listen primarily for performance values (the music) and not just the sound of the music. I disagree with the comments made suggesting that high end equipment is absolutely necessary for the appreciation of performance values. It may be for some listeners, but not for all. Of course, we’ll chosen (!!!) high end equipment makes those performance values more obvious, but the “necessity” for this has to be weighed against a given listener’s ability to hear and appreciate them if a general comment about the necessity can be made.
Please don’t misunderstand, I love my high end audio toys. However, while I enjoy reveling in the huge soundstage and extended frequency response of my main audio rig, there is seldom a time when I feel I missed the musical message of the performance listening to the same recording over my car’s radio. I think it’s possible to become too dependent on the ear candy aspect of high end audio. How many times have we read a comment by an audio reviewer (!) to the effect that component X or Z finally made it possible to tell that the instrument playing on a particular recording was an English Horn and not an oboe? The difference between those two sounds is obvious even on a “crappy radio”.
Personally, I feel a worthy goal should be to always strive to be a better listener of the music as much as of the sound of it.