Oh no, say it ain't so.

Far too many zero sum games today, simple minds affix labels and completely miss the idea of complexity. Stupidity is a valuable commodity in the social media marketplace.

I would like to believe my primary driver is a love of music, but I feel no guilt that I love hi end equipment.  Yes, I am guilty of at least three points.   As an example, I am posting here.  As another example that I have mentioned previously in other posts, there are some genius Herbert von Karajan interpretations of the classic composers, released in the 1960’s and mastered for vinyl that were so shrill in the high end that I cannot get past the sound to the genius of the interpretation.  This was further compounded by poor digital remastering techniques on 1970s reissues.  My goal, which I believe I have achieved with my system, is to use the system as an enabler to extract the emotion of the composition and performance, and to use the system to evoke memories of the emotion brought by live performances I have attended, for recorded music playback can only approach a live acoustic performance in an excellent venue.  I have not changed system components often for I have always set goals for SQ improvement and only changed when I met the goals, not because I read about the next best thing.  I dislike bad music as much as bad mastering.  For example, while I have purchased Diana Krall  albums, I rarely spin them for I find the overdone composition annoying.  Give me the originals of her covers any time.  

Yes, I agree with those who say you can be a music lover and an audiophile at the same time.  As long as you don’t get on the merry-go-round.

I'll say this. As a newbie a****phile poseur, my new system has me branching out to so much more music than I had been listening to.  And back to stuff, I once loved.  Find the beginning of that circle!

@superblueapm 

my new system has me branching out to so much more music than I had been listening to.  And back to stuff, I once loved. 

Perfect! This is me, too. 

Paying attention to sound leads one to more music, and vice-versa.

Imagine someone saying, "Don't learn about the biology of a rose. It won't look as beautiful afterwards."

Phooey. The "why" of things can make the "what" of things more beautiful. It's the classic false-dilemma exploded by Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.