[Audio Empire]

On Fri, 6 Jan 2012 20:03:59 -0800, Scott wrote
(in article ):

On Jan 6, 5:49=A0am, Audio Empire wrote:
On Thu, 5 Jan 2012 18:43:50 -0800, Scott wrote
(in article ):

It is ironic that outside of some organists, musicians never actually
get to hear themselves live as do the audience. However there is far
more to the picture. Musicians are far more exposed to live music
played by other musicians than just about any other people on earth.
So they are, generally speaking, very familiar with the sound of live
instruments if not the sound of themselves playing their instrument
live. They do however listen to themselves played back quite a bit and
that is something they can compare to other musicians played back. All
in all there is a vast sphere of experience of listening that makes
the assertion that musicians are the best judge of the sound of
musical instruments very reasonable on it's face.

While this is true, it has been my experience that most musicians don't
really care about sound quality, per se. Few actually have the kind of
stereo systems that laymen and audiophiles think that they would have.


Yeah but this isn't about the sound quality of their stereo systems.
This is about the sound of musical instruments. I think musicians do
care about that. Actually I know a few myself that care quite a bit
about that.

Well, of course they do, but my point is that this concern about the
sound quality of their instruments doesn't seem to require the kind of
reproduction quality that most of us would think would be required.
IOW, the things that tell them the "qualities " of the instrument
sound that they are interested in doesn't require much Fi. Case in
point: I used to record a symphony orchestra with a fairly well known
conductor. Since I was the "symphony archivist" it was part of my job
to provide 'study tapes' to the conductor. I figured that he would
have some megabuck system and that the study tapes I made for him
would be one-off 15 ips, half-track copies of the master. WRONG! He
only wanted cassettes. When I visited his home for a party one time, I
saw his "system". It was a boom box- and a fairly cheap and hideous
sounding one at that! "How can you hear what the orchestra is doing on
that?" I asked. His answer was that it was more than adequate for his
purposes. I guess my expectations had been formed by seeing "Once More
With Feeling" with Yul Brenner as egomaniacal conductor Victor Fabian
too many times. Now HE had a proper stereo system!