I lately wonder why I’m an Audiophile.

Listening to sound qualities of one's carefully curated system should be enjoyable, I don't feel the need to ignore it, I also very much enjoy the music. Perhaps its a learned skill to happily allow both listening modes to coexist. The only times I'm able to completely ignore sound quality is when listening to my mid fi work system and car systems. While I''m content listening to mediocre or lesser systems I derive much more pleasure from my audiophile system, the added bonus of fine sound quality adds much to my pleasure. 

I enjoy @rvpiano posts. Our perceptions/psychology are an extremely critical component in our audio systems. 

I have a single night set aside each week for five hour or so listening session, never listen casually. These days all streams or cd rips, let Roon randomly choose from my huge library either from within specific genres or from entire library. Random play means only one track per album  played, the variety in sound staging, resolution, transparency, tonality, timbre, dynamics, etc. is incredible, can't imagine NOT being attentive to this. I'm also not particular about ultimate sound quality of recordings, I'm open to pretty much anything. While I maintain awareness of all these qualities in regard to sound I mindfully maintain a non-judgmental perceptive listening state.

I believe the key to maximally enjoying one's system for both the music and sound is found in turning off the prefrontal cortex of brain where judgment is primarily located. Simply acknowledging these sound variables rather than evaluating and analyzing is key to a relaxed state of listening. I do like some of the previous allusions  in this thread to Buddhist philosophy, lessening desire allows one to see things as they really are, analyzing, comparing, evaluating comes from the wellspring of desire. Relax your mind, let the sound and music flow, you'll be a much happier audiophile.  

@rvpiano I finally understand where you're coming from! I don't believe you should distance yourself from being an audiophile, rather you should consider yourself a happy audiophile. 

I also understand why some feel the need to distance themselves from this hobby/obsession. In our family business I regularly encounter a couple individuals who've interacted with audiophiles in their line of work. One was a former salesperson at one the the local high end audio dealers (now a custom woodworker), this guy absolutely detests audiophiles, he perceives them as angst ridden, insecure, obsessed, absolutely anal in their audiophile quest. He's happy with what many of us would consider just above mid fi system. The other individual is a musician that works for a local custom room treatment manufacturer (we help in the manufacturer of these treatments). He simply doesn't get the whole obsession with chasing down the last iota of performance- from a home system, this both audio and home theater installations, again he perceives them as angst ridden people fixated on concerns he'd never have. He gets his audio and music 'fix' from performing live music for an audience. 

Point in all this, based on outside, and 'inside' perspectives audiophilia often seen as an affliction rather than something enjoyable. Doesn't have to be this way, I've seen both happy and angst ridden audiophiles in my lifetime, contentedness comes from within when one learns to allow it.

@macg19 Not sad at all. I listen to music all day at work, this a wonderful student run station at the Univ. of Michigan, WCBN. All genres of music, each dj has a one hour show, brings their own unique play lists and favs for all of us to hear. And then I stream music exclusively in cars. The audiophile rig is meant solely for a totally immersive, transcendent experience, wonderful SOUND and music makes this a totally unique experience. 

As for evaluation, judgement, angst, etc I experienced more than my fair share of this in my audiophile journey. I'd hear these wonderful systems at shows and dealers and want my home system to sound similarly. There were years of equipment chasing and regressive, lateral and progressive movement. In spite of all this I was able to derive listening pleasure, at least for limited time frames from  the systems I did have. This came from both trying to remain mindful of the idea of enjoying the journey, and the fact my system did indeed do some things quite well. 

I'd posit it may not be possible for audiophiles to never experience this evaluation, comparison, judgement phase in growing their systems. Perhaps this all depends on what uses as their reference, my references were very high end so the journey was difficult, I assume a lesser reference would make the journey easier. Perhaps the non-audiophile has it the easiest, no reference for comparison, no evaluation and judgment, this at least for sound. The funny thing is, in conversation with the musician I discovered his achilles heel in listening to music is always evaluating performance, as Roseannadanna so eloguently stated, "Its always something."

Some want to place all  audiophiles in same bag, for them it means always listening analytically, obsessing with equipment. This may be true for some audiophiles and that's fine with me, no skin off my back. Not all audiophiles like this, obvious by so many threads over many years in this forum. The definition given above is the actual meaning, so don't let others define you.