music: religious experience or background noise?

In an essay about "Music and the Transcendental," the philosopher Roger Scruton, in trying to come to terms with the paradox that music, although an art that unfolds in time, seems to express the "eternal" (or "transcendental"), notes that the musical culture of German Romanticism--thus, of Beethoven in particular--"was a listening culture; ours is a culture of hearing." He goes on to explain that, although "much music is heard" in our culture, "not much now is listened to." 

Sadly, I agree. But I think that audiophiles are an exception. For most people, music is "background"; something not to be paid much direct attention to while one is doing something else. Even dance music fits this model, more or less. But audiophiles tend to sit and listen critically, while doing nothing else.

This is noteworthy, as none of the musicians, composers, or conductors in my social circle are audiophiles. Yet the habit of sitting and listening critically is indispensable to the appreciation of serious music, no?

How about you? Do you have your stereo on all the time, like some people have the TV on all the time, whether or not you're actually paying attention to it? Or do you show music the respect it deserves?

Obviously, I've posed that question tendentiously, and it reveals my own prejudices. Serious listening and appreciating a background ambiance aren't mutually exclusive. But I find that I'm always aware of music when it's playing: in a movie, in a restaurant, in a grocery store, in the car. In fact, there are movies I haven't liked but for the music, and even in movies I'm involved in, if music that I love is used, I pay more attention to it than to the drama on screen. This tendency, I'm convinced, is central to my own audiophilia: because music ranks so high in the panoply of possible sensual stimuli that permeate our environments, I'm particularly finicky about its realistic reproduction.

Is that the case for most of you audiophiles, or is it just me?