Getting into the music

@stuartk 

 I’m not sure what you mean by “a function of gear.”    
 I think I replaced my passion for music with a passion for sound.  Something I never thought possible.   
I’ve been a music lover since I was a child.
As a musician, I performed in many concert halls and soloed with orchestras. 
 I suppose that after I stopped performing I placed my creativity in the building of an exemplary stereo system. 
 I succeeded so successfully that it became a primary force in my life.  
 Of course I still love music and can be transported by it, but this audiophilia is powerful.

Try listening to your system drunk.

You wish to return to the reality when you were performing. The better the sound the closer to that reality. I can understand it.

Like the genie in the bottle, once you acquire the skill of critical listening, it’s hard to turn it off.

As ghdprentice described it, is called "technically perfect, musically dead".

So how to tackle your problem of loosing the music?

You have a great system but I would ditch the Benchmark DAC for sure and go NOS. IMHO, that DAC is made for mastering but not so good for listening to music.

I like Golden Ear but listen to some DeVore O/96. See what you think. They emphasize colors in the music, not detail.

If there are soundstaging issues, listen in mono, not stereo. This can be easily done with a "Y" connector.

I find myself going from composition to composition looking for audio niceties

Ask yourself "How many of these songs do I actually like?" Are you expecting the "sonic delights" to make you like a song that you basically do not like?

Do not throw out the baby with the bath water. As you realized, there are some songs that do sound really good on a hi-end stereo.

There is no shame in walking away from this hobby if it is doing more harm than good.

Hope this helps.

@OP Conversely, as a musician and recordist, I have to turn off the engineering and production side of my brain rather than the audiophile side.

I find it helpful to listen to the radio on an average sounding system - with less information, it's easier to focus just on the writer/composer's intentions.