Musicians?

Another great post, Frogman! Agree completely with your comments which, as you say, apply no matter what type of venue the music was recorded in. Whether or not a system can give this sense of sound traveling from/in a real space is very important. The best recordings/systems will give you a sense of the original acoustic, including the ambient noise, and how the sound travels in and fills it.

I worked as a session drummer for years here in Chicago. I played mostly jazz and rock. I also play guitar and bass. With music, I listen for 'tone'. The sound of the instrument. My favorite instrument to listen too is solo piano, solo guitar (acoustic), and small jazz ensembles. Too many listen to their systems and never hear the music. There is nothing like listening to live music and learning what an instrumetn actually sounds like. I also enjoy recording small venues with a half track reel to reel and a couple of Sony mikes. Amazing results. Makes we wonder what their doing in studios these days. My profession now is my other passion... photography.

I was a professional touring rock drummer for several years, and somehow still have intact hearing at age 43 despite having a monitor blasting 110+dB into my left ear for about 150 nights a year.

I don't expect recorded music to approximate live drums, especially in loud rock recordings. It seems like the more instruments are layered into a recording, the more compressed the drums become. I don't worry about it too much either. I really enjoy it, though, when an engineer can make drums sound like live drums in a room, minus the dynamics. Brendan O'Brien does a great job in that respect.

I primarily look for tonal balance so that nothing seems amiss, and especially seek to avoid tonal imbalances that make bad recordings worse.

In my opinion, the two system characterstics that make recorded music more engaging are fast transients and a big, holographic soundstage. The system I have now accomplishes this, and it makes good recordings sound great and bad recordings more than tolerable.

I'm semi pro,with an undergrad minor in piano.

The paycheck comes from refining raw data.

My Marantz front end feeds a pair of Maggie 1.6s. For serious listening, I use Grado headphones.

Soon,I'll have to move and the Maggies will get a good local home with t lines on my short list.

Yes,I'm an imaging nut;I want to be able to follow the counterpoint without the speakers getting in the way.

At the risk of incurring someone's wrath,as happened above,I DO know professional musicians who spend their time practicing real instruments and when they do listen,listen to modest systems----or monitors in recording studios.

Also,remember that some musicians endorse equipment much as basketball players endorse shoes and concert pianists endorse pianos. They endorse the high bidder.

I am a pianist and play the piano only in the weekends during my leisure time. I do not play in public or perform in concerts. My piano is a Kawai US-50 upgraded from a Yamaha upright. I was enrolled in piano classes at the age of 6 and completed the course at 15. In my early twenties I began to develop a passion in music when I set up my first "high-end" system at 19, and that was the time I re-discovered the passion in playing the instrument that I had spent a great deal of time learning.

I have created an almost similar thread about 2 years ago.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?gmusi&1167140637&openmine&zzRyder&4&5#Ryder