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 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.
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
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.
Most musicians don’t care. There are a few notable exceptions. But typically creating music is about stringing notes together, melodies... the structure... the performance. If they hear that clearly that is enough. They spend time in studios... a very different kind of setup. So, personal playback it is not a passion. There are exceptions of course.
Most musicians I know will listen to music on anything. they're not interested in high end audio gear. They devote their time to practicing, writing, band rehearsals, recording and playing live. I agree with the post above. I remember reading an article about Tony Bennett years ago, which showed pics of his apartment in NYC, and his high end system. not an all out system, but a descent one. That's one exception and I thought it was pretty cool.
well, I guess it's a similar question to "what car racecar drivers drive". Sometimes they drive a minivan.
First off, I am sorry about the
rich douchebags comment. It was completely unnecessary. I am a poor child with audiophile system-envy.
But on the other hand I am still intrigued. Some musicians produce super sharp and precise sound (like M Ward) and some a bit messy (like Jeff Lynne) and I assume it has to do with their listening preferences. (Both of them are my favorites and geniuses). And I can go on an on, would a speaker company benefit from having Dave Grohl review their latest model?
If you can create/play music yourself, why care about silly boxes attempting at creating an illusion?
All my musician friends could care less. Some appreciate the effort, but I get the feeling they're just being nice, and think audiophoolery is silly. A good musician usually has great ear for sound.
A minimum level of fidelity is nice, but a transistor radio tuned in properly will still get attention if the music is "right".
"Douchebag" qualification is not limited to wallet size, creed, political belief or nationality.
Why musicians? They are consumers as we do. Like asking a car race driver if having a sports car, maybe yes, maybe not. Had a girlfriend who was a mezzo soprano, and going to choose together a system she liked most a pair of Mission 707 because most likely they were doing some things rather well in that region.
I'm a musician of forty years (local 802) and during my research of buying some gear I recently talked to a few of my friends including one who plays with Steely Dan and they all have very average or below average systems and AirPods. We really don't care that much because we listen to the content of the music, not so much the sound quality. After all, what are we going to do, stop listening to Charlie Parker, Lester Young Caruso? If you're skilled, you can filter out the music from the fidelity by training your ear. If you want to train your ear to listen harder, get a free app called "Functional Ear Trainer" or Earpeggio". Sound quality is just a perk to us.
Phil Barone makes a good point, but let’s put things in a different perspective. It may be true that MOST musicians aren’t interested in high end gear. However, after 45 years as a professional musician and having known and worked with hundreds of musicians I can confidently say that as a percentage of the overall community of musicians the number who are audiophiles is far far greater than the percentage of music lovers in the general population who are also audiophiles. Additionally, the number is even greater if the criterion is simply to have better than average music playback gear. I think that the idea that there are only a few exceptions (audiophiles) among musicians is greatly exaggerated; to the point that if this last criterion were used I would probably change “most” to “many”. So, why the misconception?
I have noticed that when this topic comes up in discussions here and elsewhere the overwhelming majority of the time the musicians used as examples are rock musicians. “My rock band mates”, “My cousin the rock drummer”, etc. This brings up an interesting issue.
I work primarily in the chamber and orchestral music field, and in a previous (professional) life in the Jazz field as well. In any one of the orchestras that I play in regularly I can’t think of a single instrumental section that doesn’t have at least two members who own quality audio playback gear. In many cases the gear is definitely of audiophile quality. I recently helped a violinist set up his newly purchased Crosby Quad 57’s and Audio Research gear. In the same orchestra one oboist owns all EAR tube amplification and Maggies. A clarinetist owns Proac and VAC. One bassist owns Vandersteen and BEL, another Vandersteen and Moscode. I could go on.
I believe that the fact that these musicians perform acoustic instruments in live unamplified settings is the reason that more of them gravitate toward HE audio gear than do Rock musicians. I know that some will take exception to this notion, but it points once again to the idea that the sound of live acoustic instruments is the best reference for judging the sound of audio gear. It is true that musicians generally prefer (need to) spend much of their time practicing their instruments instead of fiddling with audio gear. However, owning quality audio gear does not mean that one has to be constantly fiddling with it; obsessive tweaking and swapping out. That is a separate issue that afflicts many audiophiles, but not all. For musicians, the tweaking is often reserved for the set up of their instruments. You would be amazed at the number of “tweaks” that are available to, for instance, a professional woodwind player:
Besides the very personal choice of instrument you have the endless search for the perfect mouthpiece (philbarone knows all about this). Then, the different types of ligatures to hold the reed to the mouthpiece; brass, silver, 10k or 18k gold? What type of Reed? French or German cut? Did the cane come from France or Argentina? What strength? Then, how to tweak (shave) the reed with the reed knife for a specific response and sound? Get the saxophone’s neck gold or silver plated for a different sound? Or, change out the springs for a stiffer or lighter/faster action? Raise the keys for a brighter and more resonant sound? It is endless and it all impacts the sound produced. Moreover, often the subtlety in the sonic nuances produced by some of these “tweaks” make the differences between audio cables and many audio tweaks seem grotesque. There’s only so many hours in the day.
I know some will object to this notion, but this level of timbral nuance simply doesn’t exist in most rock/pop music due to the use of mostly electronic amplified instruments. In no way is this a comment on the validity of the music or comment on the superiority of one genre vs the other. The point is simply that for Classical and acoustic Jazz musicians owning quality audio gear may be more important in order to be able to hear more of the extremely subtle details in the timbre and texture of acoustic instruments and unamplified vocals that they are used to hearing when performing live or practicing. Much of this nuance is simply lost when instruments are amplified.
It is also true that just as with audiophiles, some musicians are of a personality type that is more prone than others to be preoccupied with the endless search for the elusive “perfect” sound; sometimes at the expense of missing the (musical) forest for the trees.
I will only add that i am not a musician but a classical music lover of jazz and Indian and Iranian music...
They are 2 types of audiophiles for me in relation to the gear:
Those who search for the best acoustical rendition of timbre hues....
Those who will buy anything that will increase bass and details and sound pressure excitment....
Those who want that their gear sound like a musical instrument and those who want a live concert excitment....
Someone already said that without an array of subwoofers an audio system is " a transistor radio"...sic... 😊
In a word people listen sound pressure or details or listen music....
The classical musicians i encountered in my life were interested ONLY by timbre impression....
My only discovery in audio is that it takes only relatively good gear, not necessarily costly at all, to create a very good experience of timbre at the condition to study acoustic and applying it....
For sure there is a number of audiophile BETWEEN these 2 categories, but the majority is in these 2 categories.... I may be wrong but it is my experience...
i concur wholeheartedly with the important and critical distinction between rock/electronic music musicians versus those who play acoustic instruments
just like folks who go to a ’live’ event in the meadowlands with 60,000 fans (pre virus of course)... yes it is sure live but you are listening to banks of huge pa speakers driven by harsh industrial amps... if that is your reference for ’live music’ then you will think certain speakers and gear sound just right
otoh, you go to village vanguard or the met or a live symphony and hear unamplified or minimally amplified music, hear a singer’s voice, grand piano, acoustic bass or snare drum propogate naturally through the room to your ears, your reference would be entirely different
I’ve been a professional musician since the 60s and also (or at least pre-pandemic) mix smaller venue concert sound. Among working musicians it’s pretty much like everybody else...most don’t care about having a high end sound hobby. That’s just how it is...I know a few who clearly are into it, but that has zero to do with how much time they supposedly have or don’t have, or how great they are. Example...Peter Washington is a first call NYC jazz bass player (Bill Charlap trio, etc, etc.) and is way into high end...loves it...tubes, big Tannoys...Also a lot of serious players have home recording rigs that put most residential 2 channel systems to shame, so there’s that.
Frogman what an outstanding thread, me being an ex musician starting at the age of 8 in the church, elementary school, high school, Marine corps field, dance and jazz band ending up back into the church; I couldn`t have expound explicated or elucidated any clearer outstanding.
With a few exceptions, most musician's systems I've read about are mid-fi at best. (a) they're more interested (and dependent on) making music than listening to it, (b) they never had anyone expose them to great-sounding gear, (c) most musicians are barely getting by working multiple gigs just to survive and spending $$$ on gear isn't at the top of their list.
Gano, you really opened a can a worms on this one!
When you really get right down it, what does it matter what musicians or anyone else, for that matter, prefer in a home sound system? All that matters is what YOUR ears like. I would hazard a guess that most musicians (including some friends of mine who aren't famous and played local clubs) have professional type sound equipment at home they use in their own home studios to record their own music and that of paying customers.
I'm sure somebody will chime in and correct me about this but I seem to recall reading somewhere that The Grateful Dead, at least at one time, insisted upon using only McIntosh amplifiers for their concerts. I also recall reading someplace that Sting preferred using McIntosh amps, as well, and, as I recall, that's what was used at Woodstock. What's that old saying? If you remember the 60s, then you weren't really there.
Anyway, most rockers, back in the day and then some, before the ear monitors professionals use now, probably blew out a good part of their hearing ability after a couple years touring on the road. Standing right in front of those huge Marshall stacks and in front of those old monitors hour after hour, night after night, year after year, didn't help! As such, I would be highly skeptical about what those folks would have to say about a home audiophile quality sound system. I'd be infinitely more inclined to seriously consider the opinions of the great symphony orchestra conductors or studio cats with a reputation for being obsessively compulsive in the recoding studio and driving recording engineers crazy with take after take after take until everything sounded just right (e.g. Steely Dan; famous recording engineers; etc.). Even then, there is no substitute for your own two ears. After all, what do you buy a sound system for anyway? To please your fiends? Or to please yourself?
Certain musicians are fantastic listeners as well as certain audio people but being a musician does not mean you have a great ear for sound i have come to learn that it is a gift you either have the ear or you do not.
I studied music for undergrad and I’m a classically trained musician (violin, piano). I played classical for years but mostly play world music and some pop/rock these days with electric violin and keyboard.
I agree with philbarone: Myself and the musicians I know are trained to listen to what’s going on in the actual music, and sort of filter out and ignore the sound quality of the recording. Great audio reproduction is interesting, but it’s so different from live music that it’s really its own thing. Some musicians care about that thing, but in my experience, most don’t.
Put another way, there’s every bit of music to hear and experience from a crappy radio vs. a great sound system. Articulation, pitch manipulation, tempo, instrument usage, and dynamic choices come through pretty well even on a static-ey AM station. Agreed you lose a huge amount of timbre and sound fidelity, but you don’t lose much if anything of the musical performance characteristics. Thus Victrolas and early radio were very lo-fi but still wonderful. If I really want to hear the timbre of an instrument or the subtleties of blend and hall characteristics, I want to hear it live.
I personally love both - the music itself, and the fascinating, dense depth of sound great audio systems can produce. But I think they’re very different things that don’t have to go together for people to enjoy one or the other.
Even if musician listen attentively " musical interpretation " and filter out "sound"; even if audiophile filter out "musical interpretation and listen attentively the "sound";
There is a common basic ground: the playing dynamic of a pitch timbre acoustical instrument, which is at the same time music and sound....Or a particular singing voice...
I have a few friends that are successful, commercially as well as Musically, Classical Musicians. Their systems are all crap. One told me that his mind probably fills in the missing information
You can tell by the sound quality of the music they release that most musicians could care less about sound quality. I wish someone could convince them that great sound quality is worth the effort.
I accept the mantra that the simplest answer tends to be the best one.
Anyone who makes a living playing and listening to live music will always have a much lesser experience when listening to any recorded sound.
Secondly, musicians will always put money into their instruments before anything else. Rightfully so.
Now that said the best sounding home system I ever heard was in a retired musician's home. And when he plays his grand piano his hifi system becomes a distant memory.
I've become inured to the criticism that seems to inevitably come from being an audiophile. What can I say? I just love sitting in the sweet spot, reveling in wonderful imaging & tone, hearing musicians coming alive for my ears, sparking my emotions and engaging my intellect.
Audiophiles believe SOUND is the gateway to perceiving and enjoying music,whereas musicians focus on, as you listed: "...articulation, pitch manipulation, tempo, instrument usage, and dynamic choices" etc.
As you say, they're "very different things" but perhaps only those who both play and enjoy hi-fi can truly grasp this distinction.
By no means a professional musician but I get the job done. I have lots of musician friends and I don’t think any of them have even an off the shelf Best Buy’s system and I’m not talking about the Magnolia section.
Most of my musician friends either have something fairly old or just use their smart phone with cheap Bluetooth inears. They know of Spotify but no idea of Tidal or Qobuz. They flat out think I’m nuts for the audio system I have.
Not sure there’s any correlation between being an audiophile or a musician but I think it does give me and edge over many non musician audiophiles I have meet over the years to know how or what to listen for or what may be more accurate.
I also believe being an audiophile who appreciates higher end equipment has pushed me to buy the best drums and equipment I can afford and appreciate as well. Owned my share of drums and what I have today to my ears sound the best, which again my musician friends probably think I’m nuts there too
I will say all my musician friends love and prefer vintage gear and when it comes to their instruments they strive for great sound. They can definitely wrap up a lot of money and have just as much passion in their hobby as well.
Sometime ago on Steve Guttenberg’s “Audiophiliac” vlog he had a prominent guest audiologist who catered to a clientele that were in the music industry, musicians, engineers, masters, etc. for custom IEM’s. She had some interesting observations to share. She said audiological testing results indicate that musicians hearing was more likely to be compromised than non musicians. That the test results can usually indicate what instruments the musician tested played. And that classical musicians hearing tended to be the more compromised than other genres (she postulated that that might be due to the additional increased practice time of classical musicians). I don’t play, but know many musicians and have attended many rehearsals and performances. Some music professionals asked for my help in buying audio systems. Usually they buy good value oriented budget high end systems that can play back the particular instrument they play especially well, violinist choose differently than trombonist. I have the feeling that musicians tend to be more interesting in the construct of the music and how they can fit into it, than in the pure sonics of it. What they hear on the bandstand is very different than what the audience hears in their seats.
@gano, "One told me that his mind probably fills in the missing information"
Cheap but so practical!
Does this mean that we audiophiles who are refusing to employ our imaginations are lazy compared to musicians?
@dekay , Thanks for posting the Lou Reed links. I can imagine that John Cale would use similar tactics with the use of the volume dial to determine amp/speaker credibility.
@mcslipp , Yes, ATC do seem to be the goto brand for professionals and musicians.
Why would I care what a musician wants for a system? Typically, I've not been overly impressed with the rigs that musicians have put together. Half of the ones I've seen, they are dropping the bottom frequencies under 40Hz, as if this is no problem. I'm going to let someone like that direct a system build? NO, thank you! :)
Nothing personal, phasemonger, but your comment, "Put another way, there’s every bit of music to hear and experience from a crappy radio vs. a great sound system. Articulation, pitch manipulation, tempo, instrument usage, and dynamic choices come through pretty well even on a static-ey AM station. Agreed you lose a huge amount of timbre and sound fidelity, but you don’t lose much if anything of the musical performance characteristics," is a good example.
I strongly disagree with the assessment that there is every bit as much articulation as with a more capable system. I also find "instrument usage" to be nebulous; perhaps it refers to complex passages in which many are playing simultaneously, in which case there is NO comparison between a poor radio/system and a formidable system. One clearly hears the performance better, and imo, in a much more impactful way, with a high end rig. Just because one may be able to get emotionally into the music in no way means it's a great listen, i.e. worth listening to by someone who wants superior, quality listening. It's not terribly exciting to hear distortion of a low end rig slaughtering the performance, especially since it does not have to be that way.
Yes, when you have cheap audio you lose "sound fidelity", which IS the quality of the music. Crappy or heavenly performance is one thing. Sound quality is entirely another. Anyone can excuse away mediocrity, for any number of reasons. I chose not to have mediocrity in the sound I am hearing. :)
I used to be the only CA dealer for ATC. They are a professional tool used by many musicians, studios and concert halls. But the only Audio company I know that has rave endorsements from many of the world’s foremost musician/audiophiles using them in their homes is TetraSpeakers (.com). Herbie Hancock, Winton Marsalis, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, Benny Golson, etc. Keith Richards took a pair on tour. Herbie has 6 pair. I own 3 pair and will never own an other line. The musicians love them because they uniquely sound “real”. 2009 hit Tetra hard but they are making a comeback with a new top line model-the 606 V2.
I was a rock and roll drummer in high school and college (many, many years ago) and realized that being a musician wasn't a "highly compensated" career.
Back then, people used to ask: "how do you get a drummer off your porch? pay him for the pizza".
Put another way, there’s every bit of music to hear and experience from a crappy radio vs. a great sound system. Articulation, pitch manipulation, tempo, instrument usage, and dynamic choices come through pretty well even on a static-ey AM station.
I think that one would need a really good sounding stereo to hear these things. I have listened to many crappy AM radios and I'm pretty sure I couldn't hear someone slightly bending a note or adding just a touch of vibrato no matter how beautifully it was done by the artist on one. Articulation and dynamics? These don't exist on crummy systems.
Most musicians don't listen to stereos for enjoyment. For them listening to music means playing or listening to others play. What they want out of a stereo is very different from what audiophiles want, and there's nothing wrong with that. But as long as I am a non-musician music lover, I will listen to a great stereo over a crummy AM radio any day, and I will hear much more of the music through that great stereo. To hear more of the music is why I upgrade my stereo. The better it gets the more of what the musicians are doing
I hear
.
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.
Frankly, there is no equivalency between performance of electronics and live musicianship. It’s not terribly productive to attempt to find equivalency. It has a similar disconnect as trying to ask a painter to weigh in on video production. Having an opinion is great. Having competency is an entirely different thing - both ways.
Musicians listen primarily for performance values (the music) and not just the sound of the music.
Perhaps you can clarify the point you’re making. Music is sound. What you are describing as performance values (Articulation, pitch manipulation, tempo, instrument usage, and dynamic choices) are sound, often very subtle uses of sound. In my experience, subtleties in music are heard better on a quality music system and are hidden by noise or are just not reproduced on a crappy system.
So I guess I’m not clear on how music (performance values) can be separated from sound and how a better sounding system doesn’t reproduce performance values better than a crappy system
Car often sounds better as that much glass is heaven to a 4 amp .I often hear more instrument separation from a system that cost Volvo100$ tops than the 25K$ in my house.
Perhaps you can clarify the point you’re making. Music is sound. What you are describing as performance values (Articulation, pitch manipulation, tempo, instrument usage, and dynamic choices) are sound, often very subtle uses of sound. In my experience, subtleties in music are heard better on a quality music system and are hidden by noise or are just not reproduced on a crappy system.
So I guess I’m not clear on how music (performance values) can be separated from sound and how a better sounding system doesn’t reproduce performance values better than a crappy system
Music survive sound....
It is a spiritual event before being a sound event....
I apologize, i cannot resist to answer...
A badly recording of Furtwangler Bruckner symphonies may exceed in value most new interpretation and one of the greatest musical events in my life anyway was on bad recordings...
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