Do you agree with John Atkinson (and me)?

This is an audiophile site, not a music site. Other than occasional lists of favorite albums or bands, there is essentially no discussion of music on this site. And that’s fine. Music reproduction provides a thrill of its own, which is not necessarily a musical thrill. Good recordings of thunder storms or trains can sound thrilling on a good system. As the OP (or someone above) put it, no shame in that.

Moreover, just comparing the size of one’s music library as an indicator of one’s love of music rather than audio reproduction misses the mark. There are libraries and there are libraries. Used book stores often sell books by the yard for interior decorating. Owning a lot of books doesn’t mean you’ve read them. And even if you have, there are books worth reading and books for decorating.

Get over it. On this site, we share a passion for music reproduction technology. Stereophile is read by people with that passion. With all due respect to John Atkinson, asking whether or not a Streophile reader has a music library that cost more than his system is not just beside the point, it is potentially insulting, and it begs all these other questions as well.

On a good evening of streaming, I'll listen to music from more albums that you'll listen to in a week.  

@snilf: When one clicks on ’Start A New Discussion’ in the Audiogon Forum, one of the topic choices offered is ’Music’. Those interested in discussions of hi-fi gear exclusively are free to ignore threads which include the discussion of music. That to me would be like a TV cooking show which discusses only the hardware used to cook food, with no mention of the food itself. Hi-Fi magazines such as Stereophile include record reviews, one of the reasons I still subscribe to the mag (continuously since 1972).

I think it is a mindset. When I was building better and better systems for myself decades ago, I sought out the HP List stuff and had some secret pleasures that were not "audiophile" but I enjoyed the music, for example, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus. 

I accumulated a lot of records, especially when vinyl was declared dead. I only had the time to start "curating" several rooms worth in roughly 2006. I then started to focus more on records I didn't own, started to cull, and became much more focused on the recorded performances for their own sake. I began to expand my listening to include material beyond hard rock, classical and soundtracks to embrace a variety of material with which I was unfamiliar and became very selective at the same time, seeking out good pressings, often but not always OG pressings (the definition of which can vary, depending on your perspective).

I wound up dumping approximately 12,000 LPs leading up to a move from NY to Texas, bringing approximately 5,000 or so records here and adding perhaps another 1,000 since 2016-7. 

My main system is "mature" in the sense that I have had a lot of the core components for years- circa 2006-7, but have made some incremental improvements. I'm pretty satisfied with it, and with my vintage system (which recreates what I was running in 1975 and uses some of the very same components, sympathetically restored). 

I rarely listen to the same record between listening sessions, although if I have a visitor I will often pull a few known "demo" records out to play for them.

The mindset part is where your focus is: I'm happy to say that I can enjoy the benefits of what I assembled in the way of these systems (even the vintage one) and concentrate on what I'm listening to, not for analytical purposes or to abate audio nervosa, but simply for enjoyment. I'm at a point where I may not be able to listen to all I have in this lifetime; I've slowed considerably on record purchases, largely because the market is inflated in price and grading, and a lot of the rare stuff is now exorbitant. I will on occasion buy a reissue of some rare record simply because I'm not going to pay 4 figures for an OG. 

The mindset thing was also hard for me to break away from when I was in gear acquisition/upgrade mode. Perhaps it's the flip side of " most high end audiophiles are geezers." And perhaps I'm simply more relaxed about life. 

A further though:

In their reviews of hi-fi products, Stereophile writers include information about the records (both LP and CD) they employ as source material in helping them appraise the sound quality of the components they are reviewing. Art Dudley went deep into the records he used to aid him in his evaluations of hi-fi components, as does his good pal Herb Reichert. Fellow Stereophile reviewer Ken Micaleff too.