what system musicians prefer? Do they care?

tomcy6, fair question, I will try and clarify.

mahgister puts it well and as an extension of philbarone’s succinct comment, “musicians listen to the content of the music before the sound of it”:

I believe that I acknowledged that well chosen (!) high end gear can make performance values (content) more obvious, but that it wasn’t absolutely necessary to appreciate the musical message and that the need for this varied depending on the listener and his priorities. I also said that none of this is a judgment of how anyone chooses to or is able to enjoy the listening experience; it’s a personal call. This is what I wrote:

**** Of course, well 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. ****

Yes, as you suggested the content of the music is obviously communicated via sound. However, a distinction (conscious or not) can be made between certain aspects of the overall sound. Some of these are musical content and some are not. The aspects of the sound that I find are sometimes the focal point for some listeners have little or nothing to do with the musical content. These things can be subjectively positive or negative depending on the listener and are what I described as the “ear candy” aspects of high end audio (the sound):

Sound staging and its effects (realistic or not), hyper detail and air-less separation of instruments, exaggerated high end passing off as “accuracy”, overblown bass, bass that is too dry, overly thick midrange passing off as “warmth” or “musicality”. These and other aspects of sound have nothing to do with musical content. Sometimes, depending on the listener, focusing on these can distract from the musical content:

A flute blending beautifully with a muted trumpet in a perfect unison line, a seamless crescendo by a string section, “is the bass player too relaxed for the drummer’s back beat?”, “did the piano player add the flatted 9th to that dominant chord?”, a singer’s expressivity, “is the bass player staying away from the piano player’s left hand?”, the guitar player bending the pitch (to use your example). These and many other musical considerations are things that remain obvious even when sitting away from the sweet spot and are what are referred to in the comment “musicians listen to musical content before the sound of it”.

In my experience crappy equipment does a much better job of destroying sound than it does destroying musical content.

**** Music survives sound **** - mahgister

Hope this helps.

Got it. Thanks!

I find much more to appreciate on a good system, though, and will try to keep a good system as long as I can hear, which may not be all that much longer.

Me too.  I appreciate both aspects of the experience, but some don’t and don’t feel they are missing much.  

From around the are of 8 to well into my 30's I had worked with and around entertainers/musicians. I can not remember a single one that put any effort into a decent sound system. On numerous occasions after a long studio session we would transfer a stereo copy onto one format or another then head to my house, where I would play the tunes for the band, so that could hear what it sounded like in a "real" home environment. Most of them, (if they actually had any hearing left) would just look at each other and query "did it sound good?" I've had many well known artists over for a listen and very few exceptions cared about that aspect. Generally after a few sessions like that, normally they would just let me cut a safety copy, of bring some of my gear to a gig and run a board recording. Over the years, I was able to amass a sizeable collection of "one of a kind" recordings. They trusted me enough not to "bootleg" anything I was allowed to take home.  

I'm a musician. I prefer stereo systems that are true to the source in both my studio and listening rooms. With that criteria, active ATCs are a no brainer, with pro monitors in the studio and consumer towers in the main listening room.