What stereo equipment do respected musicians listen to?

Perhaps I missed it but no one has mentioned the obvious…

Aside from the few musicians who don’t care, most I’ve known ( I’m a lousy drummer lol ) take care of the room acoustics in their instrument (playing) rooms….

It’s just not feasible not to…A drum set for instance without any room treatment? A bass guitar or piano?

IME most instruments like this are quite loud and sound like hell in an untreated typical residential room (aside from arena size).

The factor of “diminishing returns”  kicks in…

the difference between mid-fi vs. hi-fi electronic equipment shrinks a lot!

From what I've read musicians in general don't seem to be into hifi.  They probably listen much more to the notes than the sound of the instruments. 

But does anyone know what Neil Young listens to?

He seems to be interested in hifi and sound quality. 

Agree with @pesky_wabbit

"generally, whatever is at hand, they tend to have an ability to hear through the shortcomings of very ordinary systems explain nuances in performances that most people would fail to detect"

I’m pretty sure most committed musicians learn early on to simply take all their musical cues from life, not the recording. For them, that’s the wellspring of its creation: the sheer, in-person Sound of it...live sound from live instruments...I don’t think it could be any other way for them really - in their work they always have to consider how their music sounds live first. No point in relying on a facsimile to recreate the real thing when you’ve already got the real thing.

So when they’re listening to a rig, for them practically speaking it’s not much more than a placeholder, an index, but in their own heads it’s their musical ’memory’ of a live event or sound that’s being accessed. They might think of the rig as more just a useful tool for composition than for appreciation I think.

Again, in their work, it’s their associative memory of live musical sound itself that is their primary stock in trade.

The musicians are the flip side of the audiophile experience. The pro guys are the go-between.

@yogiboy

I have heard this as well and was also told that us individuals would hate the sound from these speakers in our systems. Be aware that they are listening to raw single tracks of individual instruments. We are listening to a mixed result of those tracks and instruments. Most ATC monitors in a home system will sound bad. It will reveal the mix and not sound what we are use to. The end product we get is mixed to try and account for every type of media or system it could be played on. This final mix is a huge compromise that ATC monitors will reveal..

My ATC's sound GREAT in my house! I did pick the SCM35's over the 20's when I bought them, thinking they presented a richer, more lifelike presentation with equally good imaging.