And, apropos the "hat" approach to the topic, there are the record collectors, often folks who don’t have particularly good playback equipment, and in many cases, are buying a record because it is rare and special (and often of considerable value, either monetarily or to those in the know) who really aren’t listening to the records either. Yet another deep hole.
I think we can all explore the different dimensions of the hobby, its extremes, tangents and what may turn out to be dead ends and achieve some balance that is right for us in terms of the proportion of time devoted to each aspect- the gear, the tweaking, the musical enjoyment, the pursuit of the music for its own sake or for notable performances or rare recordings.
I also think that this is not a static thing-- that your focus could be on one thing for a while, then on another. Like I said earlier, it’s a personal journey, everybody has their own priorities, interests and biases. The thing I delight in most is turning somebody on to music that they had always avoided, ignored or thought they ’hated.’ There is this moment of: ’Gee, I should have had a V-8’ (a advertising slogan for a juice drink here in the States). I also have had the same experience- discovering music that I was aware of generally, but dismissed or just didn’t dig into at the time, and then realize how much I enjoy it. Sometimes I wonder if it is a ’time and place’ thing- i.e., something I enjoy now is something I might not have liked 20 years ago, but for some reason, I’m more open to it now. The enjoyable part of the hobby is the mixture of technology and art to yield something that, for each of us, is transcendent. (One hopes- the music that most moves me at a given time, and that can change, really takes me out of my present mindset for some moment in time-- it lets me see life from another perspective, sometimes sad or bittersweet, but touched in a way that few other arts reach me. (PS: I don’t cry at movies). :)
