Do you listen to equipment or music.

Rabbit hole, indeed!

After giving it a lot of thought, I believe the mechanisms of listening for sound and music are almost unrelated.  Somehow, audiophilia gets involved in our ego, 
even our self worth, so the quest is ever ongoing.  When we listen for music, it’s a soul gratifying endeavor with no need to prove anything.  If anything, it nourishes the self.

That will be two cents please, for the analysis.

The audiophile community is NOT composed of simply two subgroups, it seems more like wildly varying shades of both camps at once. I keep things in my gear heap until something dies or I actually feel like something needs improvement, or I just WANT a new thing...that's rare, but hey...it happens. I have a friend who spends piles on what I feel is unnecessarily expensive redundancies, but he's wound pretty tight...and my rig sounds better...HA...it is all about the music, I sit in the sweet spot for hours mesmerized by it, and mix live shows for brilliant musicians from time to time (trust me...get into THAT biz...it's worth it). Buy stuff, listen to music through it, and calm down DAMMIT! (breathe...I gotta breathe...)

I am new at this.  I think the majority of audiophiles listen to the quality of the sound rather than to just the music.  Why else do they continue to search for better and better equipment.  Why else would someone sell their old equipment and upgrade the new?  To me it is all about the sound and not necessarily about the music itself.  Why do you think people buy high end cars?