What stereo equipment do respected musicians listen to?

I not long ago saw a vintage photo of Louis Armstrong in his home studio listening to what appeared to be a pair of Tandberg 64X tape decks, a Marantz 7C preamp and 10B tuner.  The power amp(s) were obscured, but it's a safe bet it/they were Marantz as well.

Having found a virtual tour of the Louis Armstrong house, I was able to get a better look at his equipment.  The preamp appears to be a Marantz 7T and the tuner is probably whatever was offered at the time as a mate to the preamp.  One of Tandbergs was a player only.  He died in 1971, so solid state equipment of any quality was only around for a few years.  He appeared to have a automatic changer to play LP's, what kind is a mystery to me.

Well... back in the 70's and 80's when I sold Audio in retail, musicians notoriously had the Best taste in Music and the Worst taste in equipment. Rather disappointing...

Joanna Newsom? Really?  I tried to listen to her a few times and had to tag out about 45 seconds in each time.  I've come to automatically discount the opinions of any music reviewer that gushes all over her stuff.

I sold HiFi in the Boston area all my career, and members of the local orchestras and chamber groups were customers.  As a group they didn't buy really high priced gear, but listened for tonal naturalness.  I sold them KEF, Mirage, a/d/s/, and Snell speakers in those days.  These people have the ultimate playback systems without paying a dime...the ability to read the sheet music and "hear" the score in their minds!  I also sold to some famous rock bands, like members of J. Geils...they had more dough, but I wasn't in a real high end shop, so they'd buy stacks of Nakamichi separates and KEF Reference or big a/d/s/ monitors.