Warning: I drank a bottle of champagne as I cooked dinner tonight, as the following may make obvious.
We all started out first as music lovers (I myself bond with other humans first and foremost in terms of being fellow music lovers), eventually becoming audiophiles in our need to be afforded a deeper immersion in and appreciation of recorded music (I hope that doesn’t sound too pretentious). If we are not careful, the pursuit of sound quality can become more important than the music itself (I speak from experience). That’s why many serious Classical music lovers view audiophiles with contempt.
The pursuit of high fidelity is a noble endeavor, assuming one keeps the ultimate objective in mind: the music itself. At a certain age---with the benefit of accumulated wisdom, one may feel freed of the pursuit of the highest fidelity as the great beyond approaches, realizing that the recording and reproduction of music is inherently limited, and that the hearing and appreciation of music should be one’s focus, whatever the quality of the sound.
Which brings us to the old basic tenant: Are you first and foremost a music lover, or an audiophile? Some of my favorite recorded music suffers from mediocre sound quality, yet still manages to thrill me. The quality of the system it is played on is immaterial.
So what is the point of assembling a high performance hi-fi system? To do as little harm as possible to recorded and reproduced music, within reasonable expectations. The definition of reasonable is the trick.