what system musicians prefer? Do they care?

@rscoates Someone mentioned them before and I like them a lot, based on what I read. Very cool company

@danvignau
Still on the fence about that, I am a moderate Fleetwood Mac fan

I've have met and /or have been friends with many musicians over the years.
Folks from Indie bands such as, Ditch Croaker , Wall of Voodoo and Fountains of Wayne to Phil Lesh of the Dead and Phillip Glass.
My oldest niece used to baby sit for Tony Visconti, you get the idea.


Few of them had anything remarkable at home in the way of playback...

I think when you "Make Music" you don't really spend that much time or money on re-producing music.
That said, Brian Eno told me that "Non musicians are great listeners"
So ,for people like me, I spend money on gear that will give me goose bumps because I can't play anything that will give me goose bumps.

There is more than one way to appreciate music. There is somewhat different cognitive equipment developed through the process of becoming a composer, arranger or performer.  A high level audio engineer also has specialized cognitive equipment.  Among the audio engineers I've worked with there are skills specific to live sound that are distinct from studio tracking, mixing or mastering.  Audiophile listeners also have specialized cognitive equipment.  They're all good, but there is a tendency for people to underestimate skills they do not possess.

A classical pianist can listen to a performance of Vladimir Horrowitz on a mediocre stereo and really enjoy it.  They know in minute detail what a really good concert grand piano, tuned and voiced by a world class technician, sounds like.They also have the score stored (and can see it), along with a bunch of other information on harmony, articulation, balance, phrasing, dynamics, fingering etc.  They also know that even a single change of fingering can shift the feel of a phrase. They may have also played that particular piece thousands, or even tens of thousands, of times.  (Daniel Beremboim, admits that in his practicing he spends more than 90% of his time practicing nuances that less than one percent of his concert audience can even hear.)
In a similar way a high level jazz pianist will have listened to the music they consider formative with an intensity that verges on vengeance.  They'll put the recording on a slow-downer, slow it down to 20%, then save it in a file, then slow down that file to 20%.  From there they will filter out all the other frequencies they aren't interested in and focus on and transcribe the finest, quietest nuances that you cannot possibly hear in the native unaltered recording (because they get covered up by the ensemble).  They'll internalize that until it becomes fundamental to the way they practice.

Turns out human brains can use little bits of cognitive equipment from a wide array of skill sets to modify perception. In the case of music, a listener's brain can zoom in or even clean up the signal so that what they hear is better than the original.

Please don't get caught up in the equivalence of chest pounding routines.  Your kids could distinguish between songs in major and minor keys before the age of two.  That's cool.  But don't let it blind you to all the other nuances in the music you're listening to. 

I spent my childhood fascinated by music, played piano, trumpet and euphonium through school, studied at a major music conservatory, joined one of the top military bands in Washington, D.C., learned trombone and all of the recorder family, left the service to join a ballet orchestra for several years and then spent the last 25 years of my playing career in a major symphony orchestra before another 25 years working as a recording engineer.  Throughout most of this, from about 1956 forward, I was immersed in music and was there when the term "audiophile" was coined.  The first time I heard a really good audio system was when I was in music conservatory ---- and it made a deep impression.  I did my almost obligatory passage through Dynaco amps & preamps, Bogen-Lenco turntables, Bozak speakers, Tandberg reel-to-reel recorders, McIntosh tube amps and preamps and never stopped looking for something a little bit better---- adjusted to my income.
    I have heard systems owned by musician friends of mine that were truly abysmal, but they rationalized that they heard what they needed to hear and their musical ear filled in the missing ingredients.  I understood their rationale perfectly, but still pursued that extra special experience that a truly fine system can deliver.  I'm pretty much still in that mode, but retirement, and the change in yearly income has affected my enthusiasm for improving my system.   Some of the components that I acquired along my journey are still in use in what I consider to be the best system I've ever owned.   I love a good "tweak" as much as the next guy, and I still experiment with simple things like turntable isolation and different cables, but with declining hearing I still hear everything that gives me pleasure ---- and THAT gives me pleasure !  Mega-systems with ground shaking bass and ear-shredding treble are not a part of any of the musical world I traveled in and are, to my ear, simply gross exaggerations of what is found in the sound of natural musical instruments.  Sure, it is possible to amplify sounds to a degree that can shatter glass, but in my book, that ain't music.  To those who seek out such --- more power to you !  That is why they are called audiophiles, not musi-philes.
     There is nothing like being able to pull out one of the many hundreds of recordings I did as an engineer and listen to the honesty of what I originally heard represented in its natural glory !   No thundering bass, because it doesn't exist in the real world unless you are talking about a pipe organ.  Only an amplified instrument can provide it.  No stand-up bass fiddle can push out that much sound without the help of a hefty amp and speaker.   It's a fact.   Not to say that the resulting sound isn't enjoyable, but it's not natural.  Now that every instrument seems to have its own clip-on microphone it is not really the listener's fault that the natural sound of every instrument has been compromised to a degree of unintelligibility !  Such is state of much music today.  Don't count me in !