So, a reviewer just said something I need to talk about.

I go for the “connection “. Are the musicians speaking (not just playing) with their instruments? With their voice and words?

 It’s great to have a high end system, but, for me, it’s all about the MUSIC, not just the sound. 
 For example, Julie Londons, Cry me a River. Of course, it’s well recorded ( lovely Barney Kessel guitar). But, Julie expresses pain, disappointment, loss, anger, betrayel, treason! And, sweet  revenge…all those things girls wanted to tell me. But, couldn’t articulate it like Julie. (That’s why I play it privately in the wee hours). 
 She almost makes me cry when I feel her pain. Almost. 
 As an audiophile, whenever I host a listening session for my fellow audiophiles, I always have a box of Kleenex in the room just in case.  So, think about all those cry babies before you break out your Jim Nabors collection, mmmannnnn!

The thing I like most about music is that it can express things that we don’t have other ways of expressing. You could talk to me all day about a Beethoven Symphony, for instance, but until I hear it I’ll have no idea what you are talking about. Once I hear it maybe some of what you said will make sense, but it won’t have said what the music itself communicated.

As for individual expression of the performers, I’m not as much in to that. The music seems robust, in terms of who plays it and what instrument quality, what system it is reproduced on. It’s otherwise uncommunicable message can come across through any musician of reasonable skill to hit the right notes on time.

I’m not saying that I’m listening to music right, and other are wrong. There’s nothing better or worse about focusing on the talent of the musician, or the excellence of the system. I take note of exceptional talent, and exceptionally good sounding playback equipment. I think it has worth. But it doesn’t come first for me. Strangely, I can often get more deeply drawn in to a piece while I’m struggling to learn to play it, or listening to someone else trying to learn it. I used to lay on the floor while my sister practiced piano, mesmerized by the development of the piece as she got better and better each time through.

Hello.

Why you don't want to mention the reviewer, nor the specific equipment being reviewed ? So we don't know what we are discussing about ????? 

@mrdecibel

When we listen to a recording, we perceived the sound and the performance as a singularity, in the same moment

by the same token, every person who listens to the same recording focuses on one of 100 detailed aspects of the recording, a guitarist hears the guitarist, vocalist hears the vocalist, Mixer hears the mix, etc.

As a mastering engineer, I spend every day enhancing the sound of recordings which when done correctly also enhances the performance. the arrangement. The emotional impact. The groove. All of it.

Objectively what we’re all looking for is the balance of all things being at a very high-level. So from the moment of inspiration through the arrangement, the recording, the performance, the tracking engineering, the mixing engineering, the mastering engineering… In a perfect world all of it is done at a very high level in service of an artist who is full of authenticity and vulnerability And the capacity to play the instruments in such a way that it supports that artist

Side note ... being good at playing instruments is really not very important, that’s an area where people get derailed, that’s just ego. It’s not actually musically important The goal of music is connection and if you’re a classical player, obviously you have to have a lot of skill to facilitate that connection, but in other styles, you only have to have sufficient technical skill to facilitate the connection… Connection is the real currency of music. The Sound, Pattern and Quality of music is about the intimacy of the artist, connecting people to each other building a community and elevating the energy of everyone involved

Music is subjective, sure, but what makes a Music recording great is actually not so subjective, it can be identified in every style

It’s like when we are auditioning a speaker there are maybe 10 or 12 qualities that we might name that we’re looking for in the speaker design, and generally a speaker will be strong in certain areas and weak in other areas. We might subjectively prefer one combination of strengths and weaknesses over another

yet a really great speaker is equally strong in every area and those strengths are very high up the scale

I disagree with the assertion that Audiophiles are more interested in sound, what’s happening is they are discussing the sound because they’ve already decided on a piece of music or maybe five or 10 pieces of music or songs that they’re using as references ... so that part of the equation they’ve already decided on and then they use those references to audition

discussing the sound at that later point of the process is the inevitable result

Also, some people are just clueless, and they follow trends or view price as quality and they have no idea what they’re doing… There’s a lot of of that as well :)

@brianlucey , I respect your knowledge and appreciate your response, as I agree with almost everything you said. But the truth is for many listeners, the sound is 1st, and the performance is 2ndary. People are specifically interested in spatiality, imaging and musician localization, the abbreviation is sound staging. Where they (the musicians) are located on a stage; how large is the stage; how close can the listener get to the stage. I do question you statement "being good at playing instruments is really not that important". Totally disagree with you. From your position, can you take a mediocre guitar riff and make it better somehow through electronic manipulation? Autotune does this for vocalists. I am excepting that people are enjoying listening to music for all sorts of reasons, and it does not need to coincide with mine. My purpose in enjoying the music I listen to, 1st and foremost, is the performance...the musicianship and the composition. Listening to "Can't You Hear Me Knocking", am I mistaking that the musicianship is not real, and I am listening to studio manipulation to enhance the "playing". Is Mick Taylor not at his best laying down his guitar track. Maybe, because when I saw the Stones live when he was still in the band, his solo work was not quite as good, though still enjoyable. If all of the musicians I enjoy listening to are being manipulated at your end to sound their best, well I am disappointed that I am being fooled. My best, always, MrD.