Turned back into a music lover

I used to live in Tucson. When I took a couple years off from work to have fun I found PDQ Records. It was enormous. I rode my bicycle over every day or two. Wonderfull experience… and largely responsible for my great collection now. Folks from Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, and audiophiles would fly there to shop.

Unfortunately, it closed recently.
 

OP,

“The obsession with sound can take over and rob you of your enjoyment of music.”

I absolutely agree. I think this is a natural dichotomy. Since evaluating equipment is most naturally an analytical task. This is a natural thing… and can led to losing track of the point. Certainly not everyone is like this. Some folks are mostly into the analysis and pursuit of high sound quality… nothing wrong with that. But for us normal humans… the balance presents a challenge.

Your point very relevant.

OP,

I think you point to a dichotomy in interest / appreciation that is very much a part of this pursuit. We are analytical in building systems… but are emotional in appreciating music.

Over the last fifty years, most of my systems tended to be a bit more on the analytical side. They highlighted the venue of the performance… and slam… you could easily hear a musician move his foot. During this time I was working and at most would have thirty minutes to an hour a day to listen to my system. If I had more time… I would not use it listening to my system. I would loose interest.

Occasionally in my search for equipment I would hear incredibly musical equipment… this stuff would just reach inside of me and grab my heart. They either lacked details or cost a small fortune.

Once I started attending the symphony regularly I started noticing differences between real acoustic music and my highly detailed system with heavy slam. My system was not really that musical (mine has never been way over on the details / analytical side… that was never me). This exposure showed where my system was deficient. I started making changes.

I already had a great tube preamp and phonostage.. which is why my system already had soul… but not nearly enough. I traded out my planar speakers and one by one swapped my solid state gear for high quality tube gear. Each step added to the magic and emotional content of the sound without loosing details.

Now, I am retired, I listen to music three and a half hours or more a day… I literally have to drag myself away from my system… it is so musical and compelling… it still has all the details… they are just not served up in my face and bass is ample and highly detailed only not artificially accentuated into slam.

So, good observation. But in addition to how you listen, the design of your system determines how it sounds… you can design for analytical excellence or musicality and emotional connection. As a group we tend to be very analytical… and that can actually lead us away from what we were actually attracted to in music in the first place.