How much reality do you really need?

as we can see in our world today, reality is reality, but each person's belief of what is reality can be different, dreadfully, woefully different - musically for example, a person who goes to live springsteen performances at the meadowlands has a totally different take on reality of music than a season ticket holder to the boston symphony...

so asking 'how much reality one needs out of their hifi' is a lost cause, an exercise in futility

furthermore, recordings are made with substantial imperfections and losses, and then the reproduction of the recordings incur further losses... some good systems can sometimes add some 'enhancements' to deliver a more pleasing illusion to the listener in the course of reproduction (e.g. vacuum tube distortion), such is the subjectivity in this pursuit in working with biomechanics of our hearing and our tastes

so one can say audiophiles are about 'the sound'... that wouldn't be totally wrong... but smart and seasoned audiophiles are about the sound in service of delivering beautiful, engaging musical experiences... 

...short of that, we are playing games with semantics, not having a discussion of the substance of the pursuit

10:46am”… being an audiophile is all about the sound. It really has little to do with the music,”
I suppose for some that is true.  But for others, chasing the goal of sound perfection gets in the way of the music.

The better the sound, the closer one gets to the music. It is, after all, all about the music.

Frank

To the poster who deleted the post that suggested that I have “disdain for the subject” and asked “why I need to announce it”. No worries, I can handle incorrect, not to mention silly assumptions and questions; and I’m glad that you saw the error in your ways 😊. I’ll try and answer anyway.

“Disdain”?! Hardly. I may be more frugal with my audio dollars than my means might allow, but I’m as much an audiophile as anyone 😱. However, I try to not let my interest in sound be a distraction from my (greater) interest in the music, as the OP suggests in his most recent post. If it bothers you that I “announce” this, then just ignore me; but, I thought that forums were a place to “announce” opinions.

Cheers.

How you listen is important.  There are times I sit back and listen for the beauty and significance of the music, and the beautiful sounds of my stereo.
  But there are times I IMAGINE I’m in a hall; then I listen for the artifacts of reality — sound staging and such.  Then, I can convince myself my set is accurately producing my experience in an auditorium.