Casual listening

there certainly are different usage occasions for a hifi

good ones perform to make the owner/listener happy whichever the occasion may be, be it supplying casual background ambient tunes, to the most intent, focused listening

there is a major difference between being immersed in something, feeling the music -- vs -- being evaluative or analytical in your focus - both are types of intentful listening, but quite different -- one is for enjoyment, the other might well be an enjoyable process for some, but it is ’work’ of sorts as it is being quite analytical and evaluative, trying to judge, parse, decipher, gauge, compare what one is hearing against something else, or some ideal we have in mind

a trained musician can listen to a piece of music and be evaluative also, but not of the sound, but rather, the construction of the music and/or the technique, say, of the pianist or singer...

so it is really about mindset, are you willing to engage in a way to be moved, transported, etc... versus asking yourself, what is good/bad/right/wrong?

@allears4u

Lets say you go out to eat. All you want is a steak cooked right but the chef has it too salty or too well or its too tough. You never would have "evaluated’ the steak quality unless some "distortion" would have caught your attention. You intended to simply enjoy the steak meal but you were jarred out of your naïve wish but these cooking errors. And so it is with audio for me and I suspect for most of us. We fully intend to just sit back and enjoy our choice of music when we are jolted by the "too much salt" issue. We weren’t looking for the "distortion" but it forced itself into our palate uninvited. Are audiophiles too picky. spoiled OCD obsessives looking for blemishes in a blemished world? Maybe. But frankly the crap some people tolerate calling itself music reproduction is the reason so few bother or believe music can be an exhilarating. engaging, and an enlightening experience.

very well made point (well, at least up to the point you mentioned the raven amp 😂)

no, seriously, this is an apt description of what i go through sometimes, when i sit down to listen for a while.... i am listening to the music till something starts to grate sonically (of course i make allowances if it is new music, thus just the recording quality)... i make a mental note of what the sonic ’problem’ is... keep listening, if it recurs, then i am flipped into problem solving mode, and out of just ’enjoy the performance’ mode --

just like as you say, i want to enjoy the steak - then bite in and think 'man this is real chewy...'