What exactly is critical listening? Who does it?

Critical listening is done by critics.  

Sound vs music or is it sound and music. Sound vs music means are we most focused on the either the sound or music, sometimes the sound  most stimulates our senses other times the music. What is most salient vacillates at times for me, responsibility for this may be assigned to the recording, the music, the performance of that music or the system itself. The sound quality of the recording may detract or enhance  the music itself, obviously this can be a good or bad thing. 

Sound and music not in conflict or opposition. We could be 'lost' in the music, sound recedes into the subconscious. We could also become 'lost' in the sound, music recedes into the subconscious. And then there is the happy medium where sound and music become one, we are not consciously aware of the difference. 

People often report being more easily seduced into just listening to music on low end systems, there is no conflict since we simply ignore the sound. This much more difficult with high end systems in which sound may become of paramount importance. How can we not be focused on sound with all that we've invested into sound! I'd suggest we're nearly always conscious of the sound of our system, especially when we are admiring the sound reproduced by our systems.

So the question becomes, is consciousness of sound considered a critical state of listening whereas lack of consciousness of it is not? Is listening to the sound inferior to listening to the music? Is consciousness of all these things a negative or critical state of listening? Is transcendence or suspension of consciousness considered to be the highest form or goal of listening to music reproduction on a high end system? I'd suggest setting and propagating this as a goal is a disservice to the audiophile community, this invites discontent by setting a nearly impossible goal. 

Why are there so many Long comments posted that just meander all over the place.  I guess humans are critical about everything.

@emergingsoul Absolutely, perhaps audiophiles by nature are more critical than the average person. Who the hell cares about sound quality anyway, really pretty silly in the whole scheme of things.

it's very important to be silly and obsessive and escape into our hobby madness. let go. find your happy place. just don't take yourself too seriously.