How people perceive music quality

My sister in-law has a degree in music. Her instrument is her voice. Anyway, yeah, she definitely isn't an audiophile, and probably listens with laptop speakers and an iPod. I think a lot of music students attach more significance to the actual notes and structure rather than fidelity. I don't think it's a bad thing at all really. If you can sing an Oratorio by Bach perfectly nobody has any right to say you don't know how to appreciate music.

Erm, anyway, I think a lot of people don't care too much about how it sounds but about what kind of sounds they are, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Yes, I have a friend who is a Jazz performer and backs big names often, actually is permanent with one. He has a studio at his house, and produces his own stuff. I have briefly shown him my mid-fi and my headphone setup, both which are pretty good. He says he doesn't really care about it or think about it and just has a consumer type set up at home/low-fi. Kind of blows me away.

Music appreciation has nothing to do with being an audiophile geek. What the hell do you think Bach did in his day.

Those who create the music stand on the other side of the window from the sound engineers. Two sides of the same coin. I can't say I know a ton of musicians who spend much time focusing on audio quality (electronic musicians excepted). They're typically too busy making music.

Plus, keep in mind, if you're making music all the time on your nice and expensive instrument, who needs hi-fi systems? The purpose of a hi-fi is to replicate the sound of having the instrument in the room with you. If the instrument is in the room with you, there's no need to replicate. It's there.

Huh? Last time I checked everyone here loves music, which is why they are spending so much on their system; to make music sound its best.

I've been a musician since I was 3 or so (and became very serious at the tender age of 7 or so) and I have a highly developed musical ear (although I think my 'audiophile ear' could be a little better).

I love my equipment, so do other people. I don't think they would buy what I have because I have very expensive speakers. They enjoy it, obviously.

I got into the hobby as a teenager (10 years ago at the age of ~15 in fact) and a lot of my friends are just out of their teens or in their teens

good point

I used to be in home and car audio sales and installation for several years and I was always amazed at what people cannot hear. I was always amazed at how many people turn the volume up past clipping and still continue to listen to it?! The answer to your question is that the way people perceive music varies dramatically. As a musician, I would notice the same thing. Just as many people cannot hear when an amp clips or a speaker distorts (something painful to an audiophile), many...most cannot hear pitch. Even some singers cannot lock in exactly nor hear exactly on pitch.

Often I would take someone into our show room and play their favorite music and they wouldn't be able to tell the difference in SQ between a $500 and A$5000 system. This is very very common in my experience.

So, you must understand, when we talk of the differnce between staging, imaging, transperancy, extention and whatnot, these things not only take a skilled ear, it takes a bit of training and experience as well. one of the members up there said that they have a great ear when it comes to music, but not quite as good when it comes to being an audiophile. This is very astute, as the audiophile ear requires development.

As a musician and perfessional opera singer I have studied music in great detail and been forced to analyze it to death. But, I just heard a great phrase the other day that I totally agree with..."Paralysis by analysis". Sometimes we can over analyze and as a result loose the beauty of the music. If I'm listening to Britten's war requiem Im not thinking, "is that a german chord?" or try and determine the key signature, mode and all that junk. In my opinion, the greatest enjoyment in music comes when you shut your mind off and let the music move your spirit.

To the OP I would strongly suggest reading a classic book by Aaron Copland, "What to listen for in music," in order to take your music appreciation to the next level. Copland talks about three planes of musical listening, from the sensuous level, up to the expressive, and finally the sheerly musical plane. It's a great read and well worth the time invested studying it. Like the other poster says it has really nothing to do with equipment.

I think the OP is talking more about "sound quality" than "music quality" - both of which are perhaps largely subjective, although maybe not entirely.

Anyway, I don't have a super high end system by any means, but I think it still sounds pretty good. When people hear it, what I notice is that they usually get this kind of attentive/confused expression on their faces, kind of like a dog cocking its head to the side to hear something. (Lol, but that's how I picture it.) They notice that something sounds *different* than what they're used to, but they can't quite place what it is (a neutral FR ). Then they usually either don't say anything, or else just something like, "hey, that sounds pretty good." I think most of the time they probably think it sounds bad because they're not used to neutrality, but I can't say for sure.

With headphones, they're usually blown away immediately. Invariably even with cheap koss phones and a sansa clip they'll be like, "wow! that sounds great." Even some of my friends who are very into music, but who would probably be content listening to an AM transistor radio, seem to "get it" right away with headphones. There's something about the immediacy of phones, I guess, that just grabs your attention in a way speakers don't.

First of all, it's a difference in priorities.

Any system that can reproduce music can convey all obvious differences and most subtleties in a performance. Anyone (and especially a music major) can get what they need from a cheap set of speakers. Music majors are much more "in touch" with music than the rest of us. I should know. I'm a music lover that's dating a music major. We are worlds apart from the way we enjoy music, yet we love to experience it together.

as a sometime composer (on and off since I was 16, I'm 23 now) I find that I can enjoy the music no matter what cheap boombox is reproducing it, but I've noticed when I'm listening through 'bad' equipment my brain sort of 'fills in' the missing bits, it's almost like I imagine what it MUST sound like in reality. Sort of like listening to old mono recordings of Klemperer or Furtwangler's Beethoven and being astounded at the quality of interpretation...even though what you're actually hearing is pretty crap in terms of SQ. It seems that when there's little you can do about the sound (say you're stuck with Apple buds for a week) you can truly forget about it and just listen to what was on the other side of the microphone.

I've been an audiophile AND musician since I was about 13. Play guitar, a bit of piano, sing, write music; I've also done live sound mixing/reinforcement at a couple churches I've attended, and have recorded the worship band and others at church. So I guess you could say I'm really considerate (some people have called me 'picky') of SQ.

I'll venture to say that those musicians who don't care much about SQ probably: 1. haven't gotten a chance to hear a pretty decent equipment setup with a transparent recording. 2. consider recordings as something to 'get by with' until they can get to a 'real' performance. 3. don't know much/anything about SOUND itself, in the scientific sense.

i read somewhere once that a certain musician said "the difference between a great audio system and a bad one was far less than the difference between ALL recorded music and the REAL THING"

I think there are difference aspects when listening/studying music. I'd say that they can be classified into to two categories regarding "sound quality": I don't have a better term so I'll call them intellectual aspect and physical aspect. Sound quality doesn't matter when it comes to intellectual dimension, composers write concerti for violins but never for Stradivarius. But if the same violinist plays the same piece on a $2K violin then on a Stradivarius, guess which performance people will prefer?