Jimmy Hughes writes at length re this on my blog as follows:
"When it comes to judging sound quality, there should be no one better qualified than a practising professional musician. After all, they’re involved with music on a day to day basis and regularly experience the natural sound of live instruments. So why is it that most musicians aren’t critical listeners and don’t seem to be overly concerned about good or bad sound? That’s certainly been my experience in the past.
We’ve all heard stories of famous musicians who – despite being filthy rich and able to afford something really good – listen to music on hopelessly poor hi-fi systems. The pat answer is that musicians listen to the music and performance – absolute sound quality being of little or no consequence. There’s also the possibility that many musicians have damaged hearing through exposure to excessively loud music."
Too large to fit here on AoS
More here > http://bit.ly/hPDxE0
Oops. Just spotted I've dropped this in the wrong section - sorry. H