I lately wonder why I’m an Audiophile.

@mrdecibel 

My genre of choice is rather different from Medeski Martin and Wood, and my peak dB is perhaps 10dB less to preserve what is left of my hearing, but yes, the EMOTION is significantly conveyed by the characteristics that a good high end system reveals, that the car radio does not.  I am puzzled by the "very little note overhang", the way that notes are sustained, the delicious way in which (e.g.) the harmonics of a piano note decay differently is a source of delight. And, indeed, a frustration with audiences that insist on applauding halfway though the last chord of a performance.

@scottlfinsf

While I do not listen to very old recordings, my library goes back only to the late '50s, listening to different performances of the same work, hearing what different performers find in a composition is fascinating, and enhanced by a revealing system.  I will sometimes listen to the same piece played by different artists back-to-back.  Recent examples, Glenn Gould & Angela Hewitt playing the Goldberg Variations - both recorded the work twice.  Truly startling is different renderings of the C Major prelude from book 1, the notes are the same but ....

I used this as a counterexample for a jazz enthusiast friend who was maintaining that classical musicians "just played the notes" while jazz musicians created music through their extemporization.  I am in no way denigrating jazz or its performers, I listened to jazz and went to jazz concerts in earlier times, and what the musicians do is remarkable.

Audiophilia is at the same time a passion but may become an addiction also...

 What differentiate a passion from an addiction in audio?

 We suffer from these two each one of us audiophiles...

 A passion for sound and music is grounded in the learning process pertaining to any system/room/ears brain:  the mechanical and electrical  working dimension but especially the acoustics (not just mere room acoustic by the way ) but at the service of our musical experiences expansion then not in itself for  just the sake of sound improvement...

But an addiction for audio  is defined by the obsession about the gear pieces and the upgrade circle often at the expanse of the learning process because we think sound quality must come more from possible upgrading than optimizing what we already have... It is easier to buy than to learn and study and experiment...it is easy to conflate learning with buying...

I am as all of you an audiophile who put the emphasis on the passion controlling my addiction  by learning not just buying ...

Music lover vs audiophile. Some may judge by the expenditure on music vs equipment,  With streaming we have access to far more recordings than most could ever afford or even take the time to purchase. My Qobuz and Tidal libraries are absolutely huge in comparison to the more than 3.5k cd's and aprox. 3k vinyl owned. I now listen to a far greater variety of music than I did with that hard copy, so many obscure contemporary and historic artists and music!  And then streaming sound quality now audiophile quality, this is the golden age for both the music lover and audiophile in each of us! We can be both in equal measure if we choose, or perhaps train ourselves?

Case in point. I recently purchased some mono block amps and DHT preamp. These purchases simply made for offering up another presentation vs my fairly long term references, not a single thing I'm unhappy with here. I went in with little or no expectation beyond the new equipment offering up another presentation. While I may have been in a bit more evaluation mode vs enjoyment of music mode in early listening sessions I never found any of these sessions any less enjoyable than with my reference equipment. Now, finally after over 50 hours of intense listening sessions over a couple months I've come to some tentative conclusions. Point is, I've thoroughly enjoyed my time during this 'evaluation' period, very little time spent in judgement mode, I've learned to let the 'sound' come to me of it's own volition, I've learned sound will reveal itself in good time. Now this assuming there isn't gross violations. Perhaps this not efficient way to evaluate sound qualities of new equipment, but I'm letting the music lover part of me 'win' out vs the audiophile. Just makes me think how much I'd hate to be a professional reviewer, so much equipment to churn through and on top of that, time constraints. And then we have those advocating double blind testing, so much stress from having to judge, and so little time, absolute nonsense. I did endure a form of these tests at dealers many decades ago, great learning experience about how futile this was. 

@retiredaudioguy There are many systems that I have heard that add "note overhang", beyond that which is part of the recording. If this is not understood, I apologize. MrD.

@mrdecibel Thanks, now I understand.  I have been more aware in the past of systems that cut off the decay, and lose the ambience, the sense of space, but I guess I have heard the overhang in the bass of some systems with excessive woofers.

I listen at rather low levels to music with often a very large dynamic range (60dB+) so I prize the ability to resolve very low level signals.  Out of interest I used my phone's spl meter while I was listening to Jimmy Levine's Mahler 1; at the lowest it read about 30dB - probably the background level of my house - and the peak was over 95dB.