Musical sophistication suggests a higher level of expertise and understanding of music than musicality, which is a more general term. Musical perceptual abilities refer to one’s ability to perceive and analyze musical elements, such as rhythm, melody, harmony and dynamics. The aim of this work was to examine how well self-perceived musical sophistication predicts musical perceptive abilities. The research was conducted on a convenient sample of Croatian citizens (N = 287 (of which 54.4% were women); M = 34.5, TRage = 18–75 years). Participants filled in the Mini-PROMS (Test of Musical Perceptive Abilities) and the Gold-MSI (Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index). An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to investigate the factor structure of the Gold-MSI Questionnaire. The results of the EFA show that Gold-MSI is not a fully valid questionnaire for use with the population of citizens of the Republic of Croatia. Ten regression analysis were used to examine the relationship between musical sophistication and musical perceptual abilities. The predictor variables represented facets of musical sophistication (active engagement, perceptual abilities, musical training, singing abilities, emotions) in the first five analysis and general musical sophistication in the other five, while the criterion was the total score on the Mini-PROMS and its subscales. At most, 33,4% of criterion variance for the total score on the Mini-PROMS was explained when the predictors were dimensions of musical sophistication. Perceptual abilities, musical training and general musical sophistication were found to be significant independent predictors of musical perceptual abilities.