@newton_john 

Interesting question "are there degrees of involvement?" I might say that there are types of involvement. Earlier I streamed Horowitz playing Rachmoninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto with Fritz Reiner conducting. The sound was from an old record, compressed, but Horowitz's playing was so unusual, as if he were tripping to find the notes. As if he could hardly remember the piece. Yet he was explosive and I was totally involved. So, that's one type. Another could be when the sound of the recording is beautiful.

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AbstractPubMedPMID

Abstract

Interindividual differences in music-related reward have been characterized as involving five main facets: musical seeking, emotion evocation, mood regulation, social reward, and sensory-motor. An interesting concept related to how humans decode music as a rewarding experience is music transcendence or absorption (i.e., music-driven states of complete immersion, including momentary loss of self-consciousness or even time-space disorientation). Here, we investigated the relation between previously characterized facets of music reward and individual differences in music absorption. A first sample of participants (N = 370) completed both the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire (BMRQ) and the Absorption in Music Scale (AIMS). Results showed that both constructs were highly interrelated (r = 0.78, p < 0.001), indicating that higher music reward sensitivity is associated with a greater tendency to music-related absorption states. In addition, four items from the AIMS were identified as suitable to be added to an extended version of the BMRQ (eBMRQ). A second sample (N = 550) completed the eBMRQ for a validation study. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on the whole sample (N = 920) showed the reliable psychometric properties of the eBMRQ and suggested that taking into account an absorption facet could contribute to a better characterization of individual differences in the sensitivity to experience music-related reward and pleasure.

Keywords: absorption; music; reward; transcendence

@newton_john 

I'm reading a book about the left and right brains. The left brain is for language, math, symbolic things, and the right brain just knows things empirically. It passes the knowledge to the left brain which breaks it down into symbols which can never capture the complete picture. The writer suggests that music was our first language, right brain speaking to right brain, or the right brain taking in the music of our world. 

As an artist I understand this because I am constantly trying to excape my left brain and let my right brain create art. It just knows that this is the color that belongs there on the painting without having to analyze why. It knows that this stanza follows that stanza in a poem even though you don't know why or what it means. I think people who "get"  music have access to their right brain and don't need to try to "understand" things. They simply do understand music without trying. BTW right brain can also be called the "unconscious mind."

So, I do think there are a lot of ways to become immersed in music. I have listened to music on a $100 stereo and enjoyed it totally. Now that I can afford something that sounds like real live music, I also enjoy that totally. But I can also listen to music on my Tivoli radio and get involved. I think that having a nice stereo is a cool thing if you can afford it. But whatever I've been able to afford, I've always enjoyed recorded music on it.

Because the music is just a means of creative composers expressing their vision of the world to us in ways that cannot be understood symbolically. Sure the musician reads music off a page, but if they don't really understand the music's emotions and passions, etc., they can't really play it.

Upgraded Linn with MC Linn Krystal stylus to Supratek cortese with built in LCR phono stage for viinyl.with 1942 kenrads tubes in Supratek preamp. Digital system starts with Innuos zen mk3 to Halo May KTE DAC to same Supratek preamp. Both on pure silver innerconnects to active ATC 50 towers and pair of Rel S510 at full range. About $7500 into Linn tt, about 8k into streamer and Dac. Digital is very good, but gets bested every time by tt and vinyl records. Keep in mind im not just streaming, the innuos is also a cd player and I have a pretty large collection of cds. The benifit is it’s convenient, but if I want to lose myself into the music it’s vinyl every time.

@audio-b-dog 

So, I do think there are a lot of ways to become immersed in music. I have listened to music on a $100 stereo and enjoyed it totally. Now that I can afford something that sounds like real live music, I also enjoy that totally. But I can also listen to music on my Tivoli radio and get involved. I think that having a nice stereo is a cool thing if you can afford it. But whatever I’ve been able to afford, I’ve always enjoyed recorded music on it.

The fact that we can sometimes get the same experience of enjoying music played on modest equipment as we do on a top hifi system has long perplexed me. I think the explanation lies in thinking of the experience as complex interaction of music, equipment and listener in a specific environment. Having good equipment helps this along and makes a wider range of music accessible, but is by no means the only way to enjoy music. 

Also, I have found that even on a good hifi system, the experience can be spoilt if the source is not great. For some years now I have struggled with digital and only really enjoyed vinyl. Recently, I’ve overcome this by paying attention to the details of the network and the music server, without changing the streamer, DACs or the rest of the hifi system.

If our brains work hard they can potentially overcome bad sounding music, by either filling in the gaps or filtering out the noise. Yet how much easier it is if the sound is good to start with. 

Because the music is just a means of creative composers expressing their vision of the world to us in ways that cannot be understood symbolically. Sure the musician reads music off a page, but if they don’t really understand the music’s emotions and passions, etc., they can’t really play it.

Again we have a complex interaction, this time between what the musician knows in their head or reads on paper, their muscle memory and what they can hear. As you also say, there is also something extra that metaphorically comes from the heart or spirit. Musicians do sometimes experience the same altered states of consciousness that listening to music can invoke. A guitar player once told me that he quickly entered a trace like state every time he played a concert.