Should We Prioritize Detail In Our Assessment Of Audio Quality?

Like what you like.

I listen to Analog through a tube integrated.

Digital through a Bel Canto system REF501S, Stream, DAC 2.7 and CD3t 

both systems sound fantastic and have different qualities. I love witching things up. 

This topic first crossed my mind many years ago when I heard a quote from the violinist Julia Fischer stating that; digital recordings over emphasis detail while compromising musicality. I’m paraphrasing but she did have an objection.

The problem with emphasizing detail, no one agrees on what it means. Far as I can tell a lot confuse detail with presence, HF extension, air, etc. Detail is detail, the finest most subtle distinctions of sound. Nothing about detail has to mean high frequency or anything like that. 

If you are going to focus on anything, imaging is much better. In order to image well everything has to be just right. There must be a wealth of extremely fine detail. If timing is off, there goes the image. If frequency response, timbre or presence are off the sound source loses lifelike character and there goes the image. Anything at all coming from the speaker and this will be heard as a source, the speaker no longer disappears, and there goes the imaging. I could go on and on.

One of the easiest ways to differentiate between components is the challenging aspect of imaging in creating a sound field layered, deep and wide. Why? Because this requires a tremendous amount of detail. Right smack in the middle, if that is rock solid and palpably present you can be sure you're getting a ton of detail.

Sad to say, lots of audiophiles think of imaging as some kind of parlor trick, or irrelevant. Mark my words, someone will say it doesn't mater because you only hear it in the sweet spot. Well, so what? You can't hear detail from behind a speaker or in the next room either. Nutty objection.

Maybe one problem with this is so many have been conned into thinking like the violinist that digital has more detail. Wrong. Digital has more edge. Grain. As if the most detailed photograph is the one you can see each pixel. Play any record. You will see. As Michael Fremer famously said, "There's more there there."

Visit the sound board?   Take up residence.

I hear detail just fine behind my ESL dipoles.

Another lame argument...

I was telling someone recently about being loaned a pushpull 45 amp a few years ago. A pretty great sounding amp but with my speakers at the time the level of detail was annoying. So yes detail is important but too much of any one spectrum of sound is a bad thing.