The Forest for the Trees

O   M   G.............

Damn...I've lived long enough to witness Clarity smite the 'Audiophiles'.

Y'all been cooped up long enough to get bored enough to 'zone out' and actually enjoy your stack o'stuff...

...without excessing over 'what doesn't seem Right'....

Whatever you're drinking/smoking/ingesting, or creating this level of existential ennui...keep it up. 👍👌😉

Enjoying On Every Street by Dire Straits tonight. Toes are tapping and I’m really looking forward to My Parties and Planet New Orleans!

I like this thread - I do like listening to music and one of my drivers for investing money is because I listen to music loud.  (I really was a field artillery officer).

Some things such as bi-wiring, balanced inputs and optical vs digital coaxial insights and encouragement for testing has been really useful.

Some descriptions of sound have gone over my head - yet I can appreciate the folks who want more watts or monoblock amps!

The problem is, the quest for perfect sound Is so voracious that it devours any enjoyment of music.  
After you’ve reached a point where you can enjoy music on your system, no more tweaks are necessary. Any further improvements are superfluous.  The problem Is, if Hifi is your hobby you want to actively involve yourself in it.  You can’t sit back and leave it alone.  If you stop twiddling with it, it ceases to be an active hobby. That’s where the contradiction is.  The enjoyment of music ceases to be the goal.  The “hobby” predominates.
If you can listen for the music, everything falls into place.  The work you’ve done assembling your system has paid off and you can revel in how beautiful the music is.

But, your hobby is over.

Are audiophiles walking around with audio nervosa who don’t know they have it asymptomatic? 😩 Is it transmittable?