@mahgister and @duglas and others, I appreciate the thrust of your comments, and there is one significant piece that is left out of much of this discussion, which may be the largest determiner of the music experience:
The quality of the listening.
You may have perfect ears and still lack the stability of attention to receive the full musical message. This is not a small thing.
Why are we not discussing our listening habits - the one component we all have some control over, which can be improved with ongoing reflection...
My preference would be to share some discussion about how people listen and how they have worked with their listening over the years. My sense is that people don't notice how they listen, and often follow habitual patterns when listening.
One interesting, and I think "audiophile" flavored example, comes from a post I read some months ago, where the person described how difficult it was to listen to his system for more than a few minutes, because he would become absorbed in criticism of his system.
That may sound familiar, or it may not, but what is missing is the fact that everyone is facing "habits" in their listening that impact the experience greatly, probably much more than any particular component. If I sit down and my mind is restless the entire time, for example, it may be nearly impossible to enjoy anything coming my way.
This shifts the focus ever more away from products and consumption to the person. Many people are chasing the wrong thing, not noticing how poorly or inconsistently they listen. And by the way, you may be able to detect differences at minute levels between various components and still fail to sit and relax enough to truly enjoy the music.
So, the listening piece gets more personal, more internal, more real than the next DAC.
Any thoughts?
