Completely agree with Newbee!
How much does it affect my “judgment” of the music? Not that much. Good sonics is always a great thing, but my system and I would say, the vast majority of systems owned by Audiogon members, even the systems that I would never put together myself, don’t do so much damage to the sound on the vast majority of recordings that the musical content would not rise above the damage. In fact, I would say that, for me, a good metric of sorts is that the better the music is the more tolerant I am of less than perfect sonics and the worse the music the more that I need ear candy from the sonics to bother listening. All within (audiophillic) reason.
Consider a fantastic performance by a great orchestra in a crappy hall. One’s ears (can) adjust to the available sonics and the focus (can) become the musical content; sonic limitations and all. It’s a mind set of sorts. Obviously, this is not always the same set of priorities held by every listener, or to the same degree, and is not a matter of judgment. I’m always a little baffled by just how quick some are to deem a recording “unlistenable”.
Start out with the focus truly on the music and I think a lot of the angst goes away.
