SQ vs. Music

Since no one has yet dared to tackle the question, I’ll answer it myself.
I find that, ashamedly, I listen for the sound only a large percentage of the time.
I guess that’s the pitfall of spending a lot of time and money in this hobby.

The two are not really separable.  When I listen, I put on some music that I want to hear.  Often while listening I'll think, "that album sounds really good" or, "that album wasn't recorded very well" or, "they compressed the hell out of that one."

I even make note of certain aspects of the music.  How does the bass sound?  Do the vocals sound natural, etc?  But that happens while I'm listening to the music.

I have some test CDs but I can't remember the last time I got them out.  When I have it's usually to measure the bass at various frequencies with an spl meter on my phone.

I don't have a set of demonstration CDs that highlight certain aspects of the sound that I play to hear how good they sound.  I guess you'd say that I notice when an album sounds good or bad frequently, but I don't listen for that specific purpose very often.

Questions do arise and there are times when you have to listen for sound quality.  For instance, is the subwoofer on, are the channels reversed, should I change the volume, etc.  It probably adds up to 1 or 2 percent of the total listening time.