I lately wonder why I’m an Audiophile.


Ever since I lately stopped obsessing over sound quality and started really listening to  music I’m wondering why fidelity was so important to my appreciation.  Not that I’m totally on the wagon.  I still revel in hearing wonderful sound.  It’s just not so all-important anymore.  And, sometimes very poorly recorded recordings do turn me off.  
It’s just freeing not being so obsessed.

rvpiano

With the endless music availability through streaming, there’s no shortage of well recorded music. Good stuff. 

Allow me to use Zen Buddhist notion to describe three stages of perception or understanding.

At first, seeing a mountain is just seeing a mountain; seeing water is just seeing water.
Later, seeing a mountain is no longer seeing a mountain; seeing water is no longer seeing water.
In the end, seeing a mountain is once again a mountain; seeing water is once again water

I think you are in the second stage and, depending on the individual, it may take you another year, three years, or even ten years to reach the final stage - or perhaps never. 

That sounds good.

On average my upgrade cycles are about seven years apart. In between I enjoy the music. Often being struck and / or getting chills from how incredible great the sound / music is on a daily or at least weakly basis. I can’t tell you how many times after a listening session going up to talk to my partner and exclaiming how incredible my system sounds... This has been going on for four years now, since my last upgrade..  

If you a not finding your system incredibly engaging... so it is  difficult to turn off and go do something else. You may still have work to do. It’s easy to put a system together that sounds very good.... it is another thing to put together one that is deeply emotionally engaging. A highly detailed, but dry sounding system will sound great for a while, then you'll loose interest. An emotional engaging one will be difficult to tear yourself away from after several hours of listening.