What are we listening to...for...with?

My answer to your question is yes.
I knew of an "audiophile" who only listened to recordings of gun shots.(weird eh?) Don't ask me where he got these. I knew another guy who viewed his system as a serious science project and didn't really like listening to music per say. I must say that his system sounded amazing. Hopefuly you can strike a balance and do both(sound and music). I listen to things that sound bad on my system because I love the music(an example would be,Keith Jarret "The Melody At Night With You" CD,I love this disc but there are some nasty problems with some of the tracks where the thing just breaks up, some sort of mic overload I assume). I just try not to pay attention to the sound, maybe read while it's playing. Then there are things that sound great, and I love the music. I find that I can get more envolved in the experience of just listening with this sort of material. Then there are some things I have that just sound good, they don't get any real play time at all. More of a novelty than anything else.
I think some people may go a direction away from musicality in there systems and lean perhaps too far to what they might think is "accuracy" that unfortunatly may them to frustration. Sure to some my CD player may be "Dark" sounding, my turntable light in the bottom, and my speakers might be "rolled off" and my cables just plain "suck",.....well, you get the picture but I can still enjoy a wider range of what's out there and be happy doing it than with a system that may be slightly more forgiving in some areas of it's performance. I never claim it's "State of the Art" but it just sounds so damn good. I have had some of the most fun listening recently to an old Dynaco PAS2 and a ST70 combo I had in the basement, sure it was a bit soft on both ends and not real specific as far as placement of images, but man it was lush and rich and depth from here to the next county and it made it hard to find anything to put on that sounded bad. Listening to it again was wonderful and put a smile om my face. Try to be careful about what you put together as a system and you just might be able to have it both ways.

Bishopwill: I confess some of us listen more to the sound than to the music.

Maybe some of your conductor friends are in the middle of the real thing every day and, therefore, any system is going to sound well.. puny. In addition, they have plenty of time to hear truly great sound. How much do you need to hear every day? They are listening for a different reason as you note and it is understandable.

I agree that a lot of "audiophiles" get completely caught up in equipment and sound. The music you put on is the most important thing about a system if you ask me.

I think your observations are right on.

By the way, I have a little experience with some of the old Scott and Dynaco equipment and everytime I listen to it, it reminds me how far the industry has not come. Not much advertising hype for 40 year old stuff and it does not look impressive on the shelf, but them lil electrons don't seem to care to much.

PS: Have you found those bottleneck ferrites yet? I have a few extra and I'm willing to share.

Sincerely. I remain

Bishop, I have found the same thing with a friend of mine who owns a recording studio. He's been in the music business for over 25 years, has all the best in the studio, gold records on the wall, has had alot of the big stars cut tracks there and is very picky about what he produces. When the day is done however, he listens to a $150. sony mini system at home. I always thought he was just to busy and has enough sound at work ( he's not home much). He knows good sound, however he does enjoy his little sony . To each his own.........

I'm sure we've all read those interviews in Stereophile w/great recording artists or recording engineers whose home systems are little mini-boxes. I always get such a kick out of that! Of course, you can listen to music in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons. I attend several live concerts a year, some in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall (orchestral or chamber music), occasionally a rock concert in a basketball or football arena, but most in local folk-type clubs. The sound in the Kennedy Center hits you in the chest and can hurt the ears in its dynamic range. A true orchestral experience, and one I can't duplicate at home. The sound in the rock arenas is shrill and blurred, and the lyrics of everyone are unintelligible. Rock recordings sound FAR better on any of my home systems. The sound in the folk clubs varies. The club that has the very best performers and greatest shows, the Birchmere, has kind of crappy amplification, and a long array of really huge, old, battered JBL speakers above and across the stage. Yet the concerts there are amazing, because I can sit literally a few feet from the performers I love, as if they're in my living room. Because they're all miked, I probably would prefer the sound through my own amp and speakers at home instead of out of the huge JBL's. But the performance and shared experience in that venue beat the much better reproduction of these musicians at home. There is one club, Iota, that is so tiny that you can really hear the acoustic instruments and singers' voices for themselves without mikes. That to me is the best sound of all, better than at home. I've heard people like Alejandro Escovedo, Richard Buckner, Freakwater, and Sally Timms of the Mekons there, up close and personal--incredible. Obviously you can listen to music in all kinds of ways and w/all kinds of fidelity, high and low, and still have an unforgettable experience. I guess even the suggestion of a tune from a boombox is enough to evoke the whole emotional experience for some. Which would be a LOT cheaper if that worked for me.

An interesting thread. I must confess that I listen a little bit for both in my system; I might get a new recording for the sound (for example, an SACD), but if I don't like the performance or interpretation I won't listen to it much after the first time. For example, the Reference Recordings Rutter Requiem is beautifully recorded, but I cannot get over the slight intonation and pitch problems with some of the voices in the chorus enough to listen to it anymore, preferring the less glorious sound of Rutter's Cambridge Singers (I'll also admit to liking smaller choral settings of that piece). Sometimes bad sound will cause me to wince at even an excellent performance, but I'm more likely to come back to that recording than the well-recorded poor performance (or performance that is not to my tastes, more accurately). My musician friends who listen to music on the system invariably listen to the performance and interpretation first, and may only occasionally remark on the sound.