music , mind , thought and emotion

Detlof, There is no "what is" (matters or light/dark, etc..) only "how is". You can't define "it" (the one Asa talked about) in the higher definition (except/accept human def., languages). You only recognize "it" when you see "it" (in this case hear it).
When one listens to the music, "it" is all music. When one not listens to the music, "it" is all "one". Once one passes "that", one is a "free" man. Think of it as water and waves. When one are sad/happy (dark/light) the waves is high. When one are happy/sad the waves is lower. Ask oneself this, when one in not sad, not happy, where is the wave? Once one get that, all one's burning questions is answered! Music's, noises, "light/dark", "mirror", "beneath, it is not", "beneath is not"; all these are tools, and only tools they are...
One is a potential non-audiophile, then...Because; all one listen is music, then. There are no stages, no states, and no levels. Because, it there are stages, there are higher/lower stages. If there are states, there is higher/lower states, levels, etc. Only musical...or not musical.
I am writing all this. Asking for 3 cents in return is not too much, is it not? :-)

Detlof to me music is a mystery,my relationship with it has been a lifetime love affair however to quote Van Morrison

"It ain't why.......................It just is"

As for systems well yes I suppose there may be aspects that may enhance our enjoyment but at the basic levels you are talking I don't think it matters.
If there is a piece of music that touches you then it touches you however you hear it.
To boil it down to nothing.
Imagine you lose a close friend or split up with your partner and you hear their favourite song.
Do you really think it matters if it's on a $10 radio,a boom box or a state of the art sysytem?
I like hi-fi but I only use to enhance the experience of listening to music.
What effect that music has is down to the music and/or me.

Lugnut, I could not disagree with you:-)

Music & the visual arts, impart immediate effect upon us -- as opposed to, say, literature that requires a vehicle (reading).
Music in particular, being non-visual (whereas our basic defenses mostly are) can inspire spontaneous emotional action -- taking us unawares, before we have the time activate our behaviourist controls, as it were. The difference with noise, or even fearful sounds, is that the structure of sound that we call music MUST appeal to a number of innate characteristics of our race, and thereby impact upon emotions. One of these is the sense of sublime rythm (the latter in the ancient greek sense -- not timing...), or harmonious balance. Harmony in its original sense referred to the correct sequence and correlation of things. It is or not at all. Maybe this joins 6's "no-states/stages" because stages are a limitation by definition. Music appeals to an innate quest for balance, maybe? After all we are delivered with a physical two-dimensional balance, so music, our creation, reflects and can can speak to, this balance...
But the archetypal impact of music throughout the ages is probably and primarily emotional: think of follia, of ritual music, of walking over hot coals "under (partly musically generated) trance"... -- or the 3rd Reich's (ab)use of Wagner (not the best pieces at that!)...

Coming to Oz's point about learning to appreciate (Oz is more detailed on the subject, above)I beg to agree & slightly disagree, from personal experience.
When I first heard parts of Mahler's 5th symphony, I did not know Mahler, nor "classical music" nor, of course, had I any affinity with the finer points of musical appreciation... In fact, I couldn't talk yet, I was 1 yr old so cognitive skills had't been developed (I'm getting better now).
I was, reportedly, mesmerised: glued to a position with my mouth open -- and my parents used to play Mahler & Tchaikovski on an old auto player that repeated the record, so I would keep quiet & not come to mischief.

So, I hadn't yet developed an understanding/appreciation for this type of music.
On the other hand, as Oz suggests, appreciating O. Coleman required investment on my part; it is "sophisticated", i.e. does not speak to me spontaneously.

A note on the reproduction of music: I believe that there is no subjective "best" way/sound to reproduce music, to each one of us her/his own. This is a function of experience & inculcation.
But I also believe that there are objectively "better" systems in reproducing music. This is not a function; it's a matter of approaching reality. It's a matter that borrows on 6's last point.

The reason I dare assert the above is that I listen to acoustic music primarily -- and I also listen to a lot of live music. So I have an easy aural benchamrk. So, a violin is a violin or isn't. Dynamics are or not...etc. Even electric instruments are relatively easy to recognise sonically. BUT i don't have to worry about the producer's sound effects... where, I wouldn't have a benchmark!
This holds despite the recording or the remastering (we all know that, don't we advise as to the "quality" of the recording?).

I admit that music is stronger than its reproduction; I have been moved with a small Sony and with my own. Just that with my system these occasions are more frequent; sometimes the sensation of being there is enough to move me -- due to misplaced nostalgia?

If you've read this far, thank you. This subject fascinates me. Clink!

Music is just one of the ways to communicate. Instead of speach there could be a sound or a group of. Sometimes like a speach or conversation it has a meaning and sometimes it doesn't.
I believe that music cannot be judged as musical or non-musical.
Music can describe a subject, colour and can also have a characteristics to be either poetical and lyrical or prosaic and descriptive. Music can also be abstract and undefined.

Music can also be scientifically expressed as a result of a physical process that transforms mechanical or electric energy into the audiable oscilations that stress the air with certain force and enrgy. It can be also visualized as an array of linear sinusoidal functions.

As a clear example that by means of sounds you can express a colour even with different ways of representation(Miles Davis's "Aura") and even "Pictures from Exhibition" of Mussorgski. Thus the music can drive the human's fantasy not only visualizing the unaudiable subjects as colour or pictures but make it audiable.

Certainly hearing the Mile's representation of colours it's difficult to hear any particular colour without looking at the track listing but after understanding the concept of Mile's masterpiece you realize that he's realy representing in his own way red blue green etc...

When you visit Tret'yakoff Galery in Moscow be ready to have a pocket player to turn Mussorgski's "Pictures from Exhibition" when you start walking by the pictures he's audialized. Simply an outstanding experience! You will never forget the view of these pictures and the way they were described by one of the great russian composers.

Music can also be heard as a story, tale or the poem

Jazz, Rock'n'roll, Blues, Metal, Pop etc... are the simplified versions of music that basically focuses on entertainment on its original meaning.

In many cases when I listen to the music I always try to find some meaning that it could be some village or city, colour or picture. Very often I might realize that the music is based on some portraits of Picasso where not everything is perfect.
Leo Brouer(cuban guitar composer) made out his version of famous cuban lulliby that also doesn't seem to be perfect meaning that "you can't just sleep and see your dreams nowdays, cub"

All other different characteristics such as consonance, dissonance, musical un-musical are only statistical values.