I completely agree with the poster's first three sentences. It is also something I have been pondering recently. I am lucky to have a number of friends and relatives with good, well set up systems. Most of us actively pursue expanding our musical horizons, finding new (to us) music in many genres, thus continuing our joy and excitement in our hi-fi hobby and contentment with our existing systems. Two of these folks, however, do not, causing them to often experience Audiophilia Nervosa and general discontent with their systems. I feel bad for their lack of enthusiasm and struggle with how to encourage them to continue the discovery of unfamiliar, remarkable music.
Mid level listening
I think that when listening to music it’s best to intently listen for the music rather than to the beauties of the sound production. In my opinion that is the most enduring pleasure you can get from your system. Unfortunately, for whatever reason it doesn’t always happen. When you can’t seem to get fully into the music there’s something I’m calling mid level listening where you listen for the enjoyment of both SQ and the music itself. I know ideally that should always happen to a great degree but it doesn’t always, which leads us to be dissatisfied with our rig.
What do you think?