People immersed in this pursuit almost always believe there is something we can do to get "better" sound. Sometimes the means becomes the end, but I think the OP describes the difference between the relatively few who are very serious about this hobby and everyone else. I enjoy my system and have invested a good deal of time and money to improve it over the years. For me, spending a couple of hours in the evening, just listening to music in the dark with no distractions is a very relaxing, rewarding experience. But for most of my friends, music is a background thing. They may listen while they are working out, or have music in the background, while they are doing other things. For this kind of listener, upgrading components, or tinkering with the set up is not going to produce much of a difference in terms of the quality of experience. So they don't really get the point of it. For those of us who enjoy spending extended periods of time, focusing on only the music, even a relatively slight improvement will be satisfying. I think maybe that's the difference between audiophiles and the rest of the world.
Audiophilia: Is it the pursuit of audio excellence or just a desire to tinker.
So my wife made this observation after I spent a couple hours fiddle farting with cables, connections and speaker placements. She said is this hobby/obsession your desire for audio excellence, or just you like tinkering with stuff, tweaking your system and feeding your OCD?
She said you try this and try that and guess what it all sound the same to me. She really knows me and my OCD.
Enjoy your Sunday.