(Musicians experience less age-related decline in central auditory processing.
Zendel, Benjamin Rich; Alain, Claude, Psychology and Aging, Sep 12, 2011)
In a nutshell, comparing two groups of similar age and similar hearing sensitivity, the musicians had less decline in the ability to appreciate music. I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that a lifetime of listening to and appreciating music through a system that puts musical values first (such as Naim) might well bring about similar benefits, even if you didn’t learn to play an instrument when you were young.
I rather doubt this. Listening is almost the opposite of playing and is a passive experience in reality, rather than a very concentrated form of learned atcivity - as much physical as mental, but not more so - mostly concerned with keeping good intonation, rhythm, and ensemble, while continuously making a dynamic that balances with and accomodates others in the band, group, orchestra or chamber ensemble, while also observing the musical notation in front of them in most cases ... et cetera. It requires hours of practice every day to keep the technique in good shape for masterful performances, and the ability to play well in unfamiliar music at, often seemingly, insufficiently long rehearsals.
Unless someone has done this at a proficient level rather than simply learning the piano as a small child or never played to a competent level in an ensemble, then it would be hard to imagine the work involved and the concentration that is required even fby the most high class musicians! Listening to recordings is an entirely different proposition. So I cannot see how the research could even speculatively be extended to those listening to recorded music in the home. No doubt those who are primarily listeners have a whole different skill-set to players though, and may actually be better equipped to enjoy music while listening compared to the who have played at a professional level. The trouble with pro muso's is that technical flaws in the playing while listening to others on records or in concert is painfully apparent, and they also tend to have a much more accute sense of pitch so that even slightly off pitch playing and playback [for whatever reason, and it's sometimes the recording and not the playing] becomes a real nuisance on repeated listening.
I have non-music-playing friends who can find no fault at all with recordings that I find totally intellerable for being off pitch. Though they are cute at finding the rhythmic faults, and sloppy ensemble to a much greater degree than the tuning issue. Interesting is that pianists are often quite tollerant of poor tuinig, and it tends to be those who must make the tuning with no or little help from their instruments, string, wind, and brass players, whose ears become so sensitive to imperfect tuning. This has nothing to do with absolute pitch however ...
Another perspective, possibly not even worth two pennies ...
ATB from George
PPeter
. It all comes down to the way your brain deciphers the signal that is being fed to it. If you want to tick boxes, you may be left cold, if you allow yourself to be moved, you will be!