Musical Professionals vs. Trained Listeners - What does the Science Say?

[caesar]

I'm wondering what the science has to say about who has a better system - a musical professional or a trained listener.

(I'm sure this has been addressed, embedded, and "lost" in other long-winded threads, but to improve findability, posting it here.)

 

[amirm]

I have not read anything about studies of what systems people have in audio journals. There are some studies of their hearing/preferences but nothing with respect to what systems they have.

 

[caesar]

Thanks, Amir. How do the Musical Professionals do in Harman events prior to the training?

 

[Ron Resnick]

There are so many examples of musicians having crappy stereo systems that I think it is almost axiomatic. It seems that musicians can listen "through" the technically poor (from an audiophile point of view) sound to the underlying essence of the music.

 

[Diapason]

I dunno. What percent of the wider population are audiophiles? 1%? Then I'd expect about 1% of musicians to be audiophiles. I don't think it's anything to do with musicians "listening through" shortcomings any more than anyone else listening through shortcomings.

I know a fair few professional musicians, classical mainly, and all of them like good sound but don't think owning a high end system is worth the money. So, basically like everyone else.

 

[amirm]

Thanks, Amir. How do the Musical Professionals do in Harman events prior to the training?

I don't know . The most reference work is listening tests that Gabrielsson performed where he compared musicians to audiophiles. From what I recall, he found them to have similar tastes but audiophiles better test subjects so in subsequent tests, he used them more. This is crusty old work so please don't run with it. And the papers themselves (there are three of them) are quite dense and I have not had the patience to dig into them in any detail .

 

[Diapason]

Sorry, just realised where we are. Disregard my anecdotal evidence and musings!

 

[microstrip]

I'm wondering what the science has to say about who has a better system - a musical professional or a trained listener.

(I'm sure this has been addressed, embedded, and "lost" in other long-winded threads, but to improve findability, posting it here.)

Science would ask for a well defined problem, proper conditions of collecting data and proper statistics. We would need to have similar data of the reference population to compare the results. What do you consider a "trained listener"? Just those trained by Harman methods?

As far as I remember this specific aspect (which part of the population has a better system) was never seriously debated either in non science or science threads.

 

[microstrip]

There are so many examples of musicians having crappy stereo systems that I think it is almost axiomatic. It seems that musicians can listen "through" the technically poor (from an audiophile point of view) sound to the underlying essence of the music.

Bermuda triangle effect. Fortunately science has an answer to this effect.

 

[Detlof]

There are so many examples of musicians having crappy stereo systems that I think it is almost axiomatic. It seems that musicians can listen "through" the technically poor (from an audiophile point of view) sound to the underlying essence of the music.

This is exactly my experience. Those who I am familiar with, will hear what they need to from any crappy stereo. When I put them in front of my system, they are generally at first filled with polite wonderment. Obviouly to their ears it is something deeply unusal. When pressed to explain, they will tell you in one way or another, that the sound is both familiar, but at the same time irritatingly strange, taking time to getting used to. Food for thought that one is.........