It's a truism that a goodly proportion of musicians aren't overly fussed about
hifi, or indeed, the polishing (mastering) of their
creative output.

This isn't wrong, but it could do with some elaboration. Musicians are
extremely sensitive to sound, so it should not be thought that 'sound doesn't
matter to them' - that would be quite wrong. They may have less need to hear
music played back for a few reasons
a) they hear music in their heads - for instance conductors on Desert Island
discs asked if they could take scores in preference to discs
b) they hear a hell of a lot of music in their lives, and may not need to play
back music as much as others do
c) they get sick of large volumes of music and may just want something casual
or small scale like a kitchen radio.
It should be pointed out that many musicians do in fact have state of the art
equipment - I know for a fact that Keith Jarrett listens through a Nagra VPA
and Wilson Watt 7s.
I'm not sure what's meant by "the polishing (mastering) of their creative
output" - certainly most musicians want to have control over the recorded
sound, and are active in the control room. Creatives are interested primarily
in ideas, but are not disinterested in the realisation of those ideas, though
'polishing' in the sense of much time spent on details would, as you say, be
boring for many of the more conceptual artists.

=== Andy Evans ===
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