I lately wonder why I’m an Audiophile.

OP in the beginning you love sound, and music. Then you discover there are gear to be able to transform the sound and music? You got excited by the sound of high end components, and even how they look. Unfortunately it cost your time money and etc. you went for the journey of this hobby, and you enjoy it. Are you audiophile then? It’s up to you to do the labelling if indeed you are audiophile. After putting up good system buy more music you like and enjoy, This hobby has no end.

@macg19 Not sad at all. I listen to music all day at work, this a wonderful student run station at the Univ. of Michigan, WCBN. All genres of music, each dj has a one hour show, brings their own unique play lists and favs for all of us to hear. And then I stream music exclusively in cars. The audiophile rig is meant solely for a totally immersive, transcendent experience, wonderful SOUND and music makes this a totally unique experience. 

As for evaluation, judgement, angst, etc I experienced more than my fair share of this in my audiophile journey. I'd hear these wonderful systems at shows and dealers and want my home system to sound similarly. There were years of equipment chasing and regressive, lateral and progressive movement. In spite of all this I was able to derive listening pleasure, at least for limited time frames from  the systems I did have. This came from both trying to remain mindful of the idea of enjoying the journey, and the fact my system did indeed do some things quite well. 

I'd posit it may not be possible for audiophiles to never experience this evaluation, comparison, judgement phase in growing their systems. Perhaps this all depends on what uses as their reference, my references were very high end so the journey was difficult, I assume a lesser reference would make the journey easier. Perhaps the non-audiophile has it the easiest, no reference for comparison, no evaluation and judgment, this at least for sound. The funny thing is, in conversation with the musician I discovered his achilles heel in listening to music is always evaluating performance, as Roseannadanna so eloguently stated, "Its always something."

I like a lot your post...

In the case of audio this metaphor is well understood if we observe that our ears/brain/ learned biases  correspond to  the Cartier-Bresson perspective and limits : what appear as apparent flaws (grainy) becoming the main element of perception and art itself. (similar of the distortion controls trade-off in audio) 

This is why music is more than sound, and sound more than physical linear waves...

Then the gear pieces choice cannot explain Cartier-Bresson ways of perceiving...The gear piece gives only necessary  constraints and possibilities...

«The window is not the countryside»-- Groucho Marx

This is like photography.  A razor sharp digital image is perfection and many people seek that. Then you seen a grainy Henri Cartier Bresson image that makes you realize it’s NOT about the gear but about the vision of the photographer.  So, listen to the music not the gear.  I am only coming back into this after a decade of hanging it up after listening to gear not music. I just got frustrated.  I’m ready to listen to music again because music heals the soul, gear does not.   

@sns My incorrect interpretation of the post I quoted was that you only listen to music once a week and only on your main rig. Thanks for the clarification.

I'm definitely more in the music than the gear camp. There are a couple "mantras" I like.

- Steve Guttenberg's (I think) A good system makes average recordings sound great (as opposed to managing some extreme "audiophile" obstacle course).

- Andrew Robinson: The only person who needs to like your system is you.

My own 2c are that there is more variability in music recordings than gear, so "optimizing" a system to the nth degree is futile. A fortiori, if you listen to a wider range of music. Solo viola d'amore and EBM/punk are worlds apart sound-wise. I enjoy both. That is the problem with the test-track approach to system optimization. It leaves out the vast majority of music, and deprives the listener to the joy of diversity.

To illustrate that, some of my recent interesting music purchases:

- Laibach, 2025, Alamut. Avantgarde neoclassic.

- New Haunts, 2024. Hooks. Eery, neurotic coldwave.

- Algebra Suicide, 1999. Still life. Minimal post-punk spoken words.

- Propter Hoc, 2025. Seduction and Betrayal. Old-school new wave.

- SIIE, 2025. Acmé. Swiss-german francophone EBM-electroclash.