Charles1dad,
You stated "To appreciate music requires listening and in order to listen we need our ears." It's as simple as that.
Of course, the brain is involved. The brain is involved in everything. But worrying about mental models makes for an intellectual exercise -- not a listening session. Music begins and ends with the ears. Yes, I noticed that the ears are attached to the brain. And therefore there is presumably some processing going on up there -- I hope. But to make this into an intellectual thing about mental models distances this from the music and the listening experience. And the further away from the ears the discussion drifts the further away it moves from that experience.
We can get into all sorts of intellectual discussions about psycho-acoustics and where the music actually is -- in the room -- in the brain -- in the ears -- and how we perceive music. And how we may not be able to trust our ears, or to fully trust them, or how we cannot trust them in this or in that way. And we must therefore doubt what we are hearing. But this solves nothing. Because it all does come back to what we hear -- with no second guessing or intellectual intervention.
Otherwise, listening becomes either an intellectual exercise or a game that begins to sound like the old Abbott and Costello "Who's on first, what's on second" routine. Some people may prefer an intellectually-informed music experience. I prefer a music experience on the feeling and emotional level.
Regarding listing my system, no one will be able to do anything except speculate about my system if I go to the trouble of listing everything, which I will not do. I will say that I have Raidho C1.1 speakers, an Audio Horizons TP 2.3 preamp fully loaded, a PS Audio PerfectWave transport with PS Audio DS DAC on the way, an isolation transformer, a Monarchy power regenerator, a Shunyata Triton power conditioner, and an Atma-Sphere S-30 power amp.
I will not list all my cabling except to say that I use mostly Shunyata cables in series with my own DIY cables that feature some of the best Furutech wire and connectors. I have the prototypes for 2 new products in my system. This information is proprietary. There are also other things I do that I do not care to divulge.