"audiophiles listen to their equipment"

As most of you are im pretty old. I think music accompanied most of through our  lives via transistor radio in stores you name it. The way i see it the music of my youth takes me back in time to places and memories of the past. Now just like going to an old neighborhood, it's fine to get there in a Subaru but I'd rather drive a nice luxury sedan or SUV. The ride to the memories makes the memories even sweeter.

@paqua123 The issue I have with your analogy is that the luxury sedan doesn't have anything to do with the memories. But for me, the sound qualities of the system have a musical meaning. A good example is quality of the micro and macro dynamics. 

I'm mainly focused on classical so my reference (and my memories from youth) is live acoustic music.

I've never really understood the "critical listening" angle. That's basically the opposite of simply listening for pleasure. If you're listening critically, you'll hear things that sound good to you, but you'll also hear things that don't which will lead you to find different equipment. If you only hear positive things, your system is perfect for you and you'll never need to "upgrade" and we all know that's a rarity among this crowd. 

@roadcykler I'm not sure if this is what you are getting at, but I find that "critical" listening can go wrong sometimes, in the sense that the impressions it gives me are sometimes unconnected with listening for pleasure. An example is a system that impresses me while I'm listening for performance, but then leaves me cold when I try to actually enjoy it. I want to stay away from that.

@magon sure it does, it is what transports you to the memories. The memories are there waiting, you system brings you back to them.