Well said, Ras422. Those are my thoughts as well. I look at it like this, I was way into music when all I had was my parents old stereo fom the 50's. The sound quality wasn't even close to the system I have now, but that doesn't mean I didn't love the music any less. Any upgrades that I made over the years were just icing on the cake.
The Sound or Music
I listen to all genres of music but really enjoy it with good sound. I know of people who just love one particular type of music but don't care at all about audio. My late relative just loved classical music and had hundreds of good records but his system was like bad transistor radio. He had means but was not interested in better system at all. Music, for him was 99.9% and sound 0.1% of the pleasure. He was most likely missing half of instruments of orchestral music, he listened to - either by limited frequency response or very poor resolution. He was a music lover. Am I a music lover or just only an audio freak?
What about you?
What about you?