Question on hearing


Apologies in advance for rambling, but this is something that has been in the back of my mind for years.

When I was a teen growing up in the 70's, I listened with a basic Kenwood receiver, a Thorens turntable, and either Advent or Bozak speakers, all inherited from relatives. Speaker cables and cables were basic Radioshack. What I remember is having intense, hair-raising moments of connection to music, especially in response to fine textural and harmonic details.

Nowadays, I have what I consider to be a reference-level system with a mixture of tube and solid-state electronics, digital and analog sources, and a treated listening room.  I've achieved what I consider to be reference-level sound. Listening is truly enjoyable for me these days, but those special moments of physical and emotional connection to musical moments are much rarer than in the old, old days. Part of this is no doubt a result of mildly diminished high frequency hearing, but I suspect that other factors are at play. I was just wondering if others have anything to say about this? 
psag
I sympathize with you psag.
As others have posted, it may be that we experienced that excitement because it was new to us.
I was beginning to feel like you did, but streaming music allowed me to find lots of genres that I never explored before.
I love late classical/early romantic music. Now I have access to composers I never heard of, and music from composers I knew but never thought wrote music other than what I heard on the radio- Like Hummel, Vanhal and Dussek.
Bob 
@psag I think there's still plenty of emotions to be mined from music even after suffering aging and hearing loss. 

While I don't experience the marijuana induced epiphanies of my youth any longer, there is still music that engages me. Maybe it sets a melancholy mood or gets my feet jumping or evokes a time passed. 

Thnking about it, much of my recent music emotion have come from the soundtracks of motion pictures. Whether it was a score written for the movie or a song - or group of songs - hearing them later always sets my emotion to the scene it accompanied. 

Then there's opera. And Youtube and those Flashmob videos.  In the last year Sturgill Simpson made my heart soar, Margo Price made me laugh out loud, Radiohead made me wonder what the heck, and Ramin Djawadi did these wonderful piano covers of some old and classic rock songs for the Westworld soundtrack.

Back in the day I couldn't imagine enjoying music without a little mind alteration. But no more. So change things up a bit. If you're imbibing while listening, try stopping. If you're not imbibing or doing anything mind-altering, well, I am certainly not going to be the one to recommend it but I understand it has worked for others. 

"I have tested and tasted too much, lover.
Through a chink too wide, there comes in no wonder."
---Advent, Kavanagh.

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There are many books discussing our reaction and love of music.
I submit it has less to do with either the perceived quality of the music or reproduction, but rather the stage of development our emotional maturity and the physical brain. I highly recommend "This Is Your Brain On Music" by Daniel Levitin. In it, he specifically addresses why we emotionally attach to music we listen to as teenagers. Ultimately, our enjoyment of music is, and will be, different than when we were young. It's the natural state. Still, in moments of significant emotional highs or lows, music can elicit profound reactions.