"audiophiles listen to their equipment"

Beyond this why does someone else care about mine or anyone's listening preferences.

Good question. 

I think it's because people who are caught in the endless upgrade cycle need a touchstone to help skyhook them out of it. That skyhook is, "This is supposed to be about the music." To which all I can say is, "Says who?"

@onhwy61 So many misconceptions.

If you ever study orchestration you realize that music is a phenomenon of sound. I mean, you can realize that easily if you just pay attention, but I pick this as in incontrovertible example.

The majority of people on this planet do not need audiophile quality sound to enjoy reproduced music.  Even when exposed to audiophile quality sound reproduction the majority of people are not converted.  Musicians famously do not require audiophile sound.  Only audiophiles need audiophile quality sound, hence they are listening to their systems. 

First of all, many audiophiles do not "need audiophile quality sound" to enjoy music. When listening for new music in particular, I love what I discover on YouTube or the car radio and really enjoy it. Yes, CAR RADIO with the presence of road noise and wind noise. 

I'm focused on classical music, and you seem to unaware that live acoustic concerts, which many people insist on for the most enjoyment of music, are better than audiophile quality. So, no, "audiophile quality" is not an elusive thing that no one has heard or that "everyone but audiophiles" rejects. Note that by "audiophile quality classical music" I mean approaching the qualities of live sound. 

@ghdprentice Great description of the problems that occur when we listen too analytically and make decisions while in analytical mode. I did something similar... choose an impressive headphone amp years ago and eventually it was my only working amp... and discovered recently that certain "warts" in the sound were not coming from my DAC but rather from my amp. It had an overly forward upper midrange, and this was killing enjoyment. As you can imagine I listened to my system much less during this time. I thought I just had found other hobbies and was keeping busy with them, but no, turned out my system was just not as enjoyable.

If you didn't personally work at....say....Yamaha's musical instruments division or their hifi division, how the heck would you know?

As a end user, you can't compare yourself to the guys who designed instruments or equipment 

That quote is misattributed to Alan Parsons, as I understand. Anyway saying there's a problem with wanting good sound is like saying an instrument designer, aiming for beautiful sound, could not possibly be a music lover and is only interested in the sound of the instruments. I.e. the sound is inseparable from the music. For me the beauty of the sound, good microdynamics, and so on, are the "doors" to the meaning of the music.

Is it OK if I listen to both??