[Mag]

Audiophile/music enthusiasts do not purchase pricey audio equipment to listen to crap music, a transistor radio is good enough for that. What music genres motivated you to spend your hard earned money on audio gear.

List your Top 5 genres in order of priority:

Mine would be
1. Hard Rock (Heavy Metal, Progressive)
2. Electronic- New Age, Trance, Krautrock
3. Pop- Hits, Classics
4. Orchestra- movie soundtracks
5. Smooth Jazz

[Digi-G]

Well, I'd like to think that I don't listen to crap.  But you know, one mans treasure...

Pop - Hits, Classics - probably 80%+ of what I listen to... A bit of everything from the 1950s forward.
Alternative Rock - Is this still a thing?  Well, regardless, the stuff I listen to was called alternative in the 80s and early 90s.
Country + Alt. Country - Classic 70s and 80's but new country' too (no Taylor Swift, please).  I also like the Jayhawks and others of that ilk.
Southern Rock - Allman Brothers, 38 Special, Charlie Daniels, Marshall Tucker, Skynyrd.
Prog - mostly the popular mainstays (Moody Blues, Yes, ELP, King Crimson, etc.)  I love the Moody Blues, though they probably lean towards pop (or I love them BECAUSE they do).
TexMex - is that a name?  Mavericks, Los Lobos, some of those type bands.  Not much of a ZZ Top fan though.
80s / New Wave, although what I listen to probably falls under Pop. I like a lot that WASN'T huge (Talk Talk, Johnny Hates Jazz, Ian Gomm, Dream Academy, Til Tuesday, etc.)
Classic R&B / Soul.  Especially some of the early 1970s stuff.

I like some blues rock - Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, etc. - mostly the popular stuff, not so much the obscure stuff.

Sonically, I can find stuff that sounds good (to great) in all of those genres.

Not a fan at all of (traditional) blues, electronic, or jazz, though I admit some jazz sounds really good.

[Craig B]

I find it difficult to list all the types I like, especially when terminology proves inadequate to the task. It's much easier for me to list the things I don't like or listen to:

Most opera
Electronica
Most shoe-gaze
Metal and its variants
Rap and Hip-Hop
Most contemporary country
Be-bop
Disco
Punk
Most grunge
Most baroque and earlier (Bach being the exception)

I enjoy most everything else, from Stephen Foster to REM, from Beethoven to bluegrass.

[Greggo1545]

For me I love alternative rock and indie rock.  They aren't always the best mastering so that's why I don't love gear that is sharp in the treble.  Not necessarily warm sounding but cannot take peaky trebles (looking at you Sennheiser!).

[jtcf]

Acoustic and electric rock and blues
Some pop music, though many of the pop hits are better enjoyed while driving - I don't have a craving to crank up Radar Love at home:-)

[knotscott]

100% Christmas music for the past two weeks, but normally mostly vintage rock, some blues, some jazz, some country, some classical.  I enjoy guitar and piano music, but I'll listen to almost anything if its good.

[richidoo]

Being a trumpeter who played in big bands and orchestras long ago I do like to play large scale recordings, big bands, orchestras with loud dissonant brass, like Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Kenton, etc. I like it to feel like I'm sitting on stage again. It's not just the loudness, it's the dissonance and the brass harmonics that all come together. It's impossible to recreate that scale and adrenaline with small speakers no matter how "high end" they are, so I have big speakers large amp and big room. Luckily my wife loves big music too and allows the large family room to be used for stereo. I mostly listen to jazz combo and classical chamber music, which benefits from large speakers just as much as large bands, but I do love the big scale recordings and it's nice to know it's available when the mood hits. 

[FireGuy]

Metal.  Especially these sub genres:  Metalcore, Doom, Death Doom,  Hardcore,  Melodeath and extreme.

Trance.  Progressive House.

[simoon]

I have a real thing for music that is: complex, has a very high level of musicianship, evokes a wide range of emotion, (usually) in long form, can be challenging.


Music that does not have these attributes tends not to hold much interest for me.

The genres (and subgenres) that fit my tastes are:

Classical, but nothing before the early 20th century. And mostly stuff from the mid 20th century to the present. Composers like: Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Webern, Elliott Carter, Charles Wuorinen, Joan Tower, Magnus Lindberg, Harrison Birtwistle, etc. Mostly kind of 'thorny ' sounding stuff.

Prog, but not only the kind of bands most people associate with the genre, like: YES, Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, PFM, etc. But other, lesser known, subgenres.

Avant-prog: Thinking Plague, Henry Cow, Aranis, Univers Zero, etc.

Zeuhl: Magma (the inventors of the subgenre), Corima, Eskaton, Happy Family, Bondage Fruit, etc.

Canterbury: National Health, Hatfield and the North, Ain Soph, Manna/Mirage, etc.

And other subgenres: prog-metal, technical-metal, neo-prog.

And last but not least, jazz.

Post bop: Herbie, Mingus, Miles, Coltrane, Evans,  etc.

Fusion: Mahavishnu Orchestra, Panzerballett, Return to Forever, Iceberg, Spaced Out, Weather Report, etc.,

M-Base: Steve Coleman, Ravi Coltrane, Andrew Milne, David Gilmore, etc.

Also, jazz-metal, avant-garde, and a lot of the ECM catalog.

Also a bit of Indian classical and bluegrass has been finding a way into my rotation.