ultimate final word what we want out of our system

Funny, none of the things you listed are actually 'sound' related. How about accurate timbre?

LOL, my system stages as you describe....lucky me!

Best,

Paul :-)

I listen off axis much of the time and don't care about imaging as much as I care about tone.

Regards,

satisfaction- the problem seems to be figuring out what that means.

Given that I mostly listen to studio recordings rather than life...I want to hear exactly what the engineer heard.
Simple, isn't it? I achieved this for about 800$ all in.

What we usually want is something more.
What we generally need is to be content with what we've got and listen to the music.

What we usually want is something more.
What we generally need is to be content with what we've got and listen to the music

Excellent Krwman007! I'll second that (and quote you in the future, if I may).

For me the modest goal is:
Make as many CDs as possible sound as good as possible.

Sounds obvious but some audiophile systems only sound great playing small number of bland "audiophile" CDs and sound harsh playing average mainstream or worse quality music. I gladly give up the last 10% of ultra micro detail extraction to have smooth natural music from as many CDs as possible.

To play music without thinking of the system.

To quote Dave Matthews :
"What I want is what I've not got....."

Ecstasy!

To be able to sit and listen to your systsam as if it was the first time you herd it. To say, Thank goodness I got the best turntable the company made. That when you hear a snare drum or trumpet hit a note you have to look around your room to make sure you are alone. When you try to get up to do something else and you are frozen in your sweet spot. Boy do I love tubes.

I think there are 2 generally different answers to this question. There is one camp that focuses on sound, that is the artifacts of the recording and another camp that wants to hear music as they might hear it live.

To enjoy music without focusing on the sound, the timbre and tonal balance has to be right first and foremost. If this isn't right, things like imaging, soundstaging will not hold your interest in the long run. To me it is the ONLY reason to pay this kind of money in the first place. What's the point if this isn't the first and most important goal? I agree with Sam, that a system should be able to play all music without one focusing on the quality of the recording to gain enjoyment. Most of my recordings are not audiophile so I want to enjoy the music without focusing on how it sounds. I also strongly believe there are differences between what we perceive as detail as opposed to true resolution. Resolution resolves all the information on a recording without bringing attention to any one thing. Hearing a detail that you haven't heard before can end up being an unnatural emphasis that isn't real. You can be wowed initially only to end up focusing on that aspect which deters from enjoying the music. Balancing a high resolution system with complementary components is the part that takes patience and time and can get you to where you want to go.

So the answer is it is a matter of priorities but I'm in the same camp as Nrchy, Metralla, Megasam and Onhwy61.