Real or Surreal. Do you throw accuracy out the window for "better" sound?

Yes, certain music need a bite on edges, but it needs to be the right bite on the right edges.

Definitely a lot of recordings were not meant to sound real so there’s no way to get it to happen. Still, they can be quite enjoyable.

As for "good enough," I consider it good enough when the fundamental issues of the recording and playback method are the major constraint, and issues with things like max volume and frequency response are already beyond anything I want happening in a home setting. If I’m just doing 2 channel, 2 speaker stereo without some way of dealing with inter-aural crosstalk, I find that point of "good enough" happens pretty quickly. No point in trying to upgrade components when I’m just going to be heavily distracted by the crosstalk anyway. I know that not everybody is bothered by it. There are many ways for a system to sound good, and some people can filter out or psycho-acoustically hear through issues that I can’t.

I suspect that a lot of music lovers who aren’t audiophiles are exceptionally good at re-constructing what’s missing or distorted in the playback. They don’t even know they’re doing it, so they don’t get what all the audiophile fuss is about.

I can say for certain that I’m not the one you want adjusting photos or color grading video, or mixing and mastering audio for professional production work. I watch videos and read books on what’s supposed to look and sound good and what’s not, and I often can’t see or hear that anything has meaningfully improved. I usually prefer they just leave it all alone unless something is obviously off.

I do wonder about the effort put into mixing and mastering a lot of pop music. Does it really significantly increase sales?

The love of music and audiophilia are two entirely separate issues. You do not even have to love music to be an audiophile!

Sadly your claim is not even wrong! 😁

Musical learning and understanding and audiophilia done right are acoustically and psycho-acoustically RELATED... Claiming that an obsessive compulsive disorder for gear upgrade is the center of a hobby instead of acoustic and psycho-acoustics understanding and music learning and understanding is preposterous...

By the way i am a relatively informed audiophile and a music lover...

Gear obsession with no love or understanding for music nor for his acoustics and psycho-acoustic embeddings is a psychological disorder not a hobby ...

And acoustic and music experience are about optimization not about an inexistant "perfection" through gear upgrades purchase...

@mijostyn 

Expensive curse? I guess the expensive part depends on how well off you are, and how expensive your tastes are. The curse part depends on whether it ultimately makes you unhappy and unwell. 

If you're constantly moving heavy speakers and amplifiers in and out of the room, at least you're getting some exercise. 

@mahgister 

Gear obsession with no love or understanding for music nor for his  acoustics and psycho-acoustic embeddings    is a psychological disorder not a hobby ...

I agree, and it's a type of psychological disorder that's not uncommon. The equipment or whatever the object of desire becomes the ultimate end point in our minds when it is supposed to be a means to an end. The question to keep in mind is what do I really, really want? What are all the ways I might be able to get there? Are there ways to get there that are better than others, with fewer drawbacks and side effects? 

If I go down the rabbit hole too far I start to see that ultimately I really don't want anything. So I have to back off and settle with the notion that I want to be happy and physically well. I'm not really sure I even want that, but I'm sure I don't want to be unhappy and physically unwell. 

I agree, and it’s a type of psychological disorder that’s not uncommon. The equipment or whatever the object of desire becomes the ultimate end point in our minds when it is supposed to be a means to an end. The question to keep in mind is what do I really, really want? What are all the ways I might be able to get there? Are there ways to get there that are better than others, with fewer drawbacks and side effects?

If I go down the rabbit hole too far I start to see that ultimately I really don’t want anything. So I have to back off and settle with the notion that I want to be happy and physically well. I’m not really sure I even want that, but I’m sure I don’t want to be unhappy and physically unwell.

You are right!

But i will add that it is not only the mere question about what we really want with the gear we purchase, it is about BASIC ACOUSTICS knowledge , which is missing among obsessed audiophiles who focus on gear ownership instead of learnings.. ...

And being not an english speaker i made the mistake for years speaking about acoustics to write it with no (s) at the end of the world... But acoustic in the singular form is an adjective relating to room physical acoustic not to the more general science called acoustics which include room acoustic and psycho-acoustic...