auditioning sessions vs. listening sessions

So my questions are: can one make this kind of a distinction? Is it desirable to keep these two kinds of sessions separate?

Nearly impossible to separate except if you listen to just a one or two instruments alone or concentrate on lead guitar lead vocalist. If you read up on "masking" then you will realize that what we hear is highly dependent on the balance of the frequencies heard and their precise timing.

Once you have a complex orchestral piece or an 11 piece jazz band then the quality of the system will often affect the presentation to such a degree that you cannot separate the two. Lead guitar and often lead vocalist is easy enough to evaluate on any system. However, at a deeper level, even simple things like decent bass response (very expensive to get accurate bass) may affect your ability to clearly distinguish bass guitar notes from kick drum.

Basically anywhere that two instruments interplay and share a fair amount of frequencies then it becomes system dependent - tuba/baritone sax, bassoon, double bass...in fact many instruments that form the rhythmical foundation of music require a system with good accurate bass. IMHO, the typical one note ported speaker with oodles of harmonic distortion coupled with typical room modal issues can make the critical listening task very difficult - right up to the lower mid range.

Midrange can also be a problem if it is "scooped" or laid back - as most 'accents' in music require a good forward midrange in order to correctly hear the emphasis from the musician. For example David Garibaldi is very well known for playing at several levels - this complex method of accenting drums (different from your rock n' roll back beat) is all too easily lost on a "scooped" mid range speaker.

Another issue is driver integration across a crossover - often a problem with speakers that have a crossover close to 1000 Hz (a critical listening frequency). Finally, impulse response is absolutely critical too...a speaker or amplifier that has odd ringing or resonance will cause masking too (in the same way a poor bass response does)

Yes, they are completely separate things. I call one listening to the stereo, the other listening to music. I find it best to decide beforehand which I am going to do. I try not to use favorite music for listening to the stereo, so I don't get sick of it. I am trying to select a variety of auditioning songs that have different qualities (i.e deep punchy bass, spaciousness, male & female vocals, symphonies, etc) that I like enough to listen to repeatedly, but not so much that when I get sick of them, I'll have lost a source of great musical enjoyment.
TwoLeftEars - great username!!

Thanks to all for these thoughtful responses!

Learsfool--perhaps I need to introduce more categories, adding the qualifiers critical and non-critical to both "auditioning" (listening to the stereo) and "listening" (listening to the music). But I doubt that non-critical auditioning ever occurs, so perhaps we're down to three.

(1) Auditioning for me is when you're listening to the equipment, or the purely technical aspects of the music software (e.g. tape hiss, dynamic range, etc.). The music in this case is merely the vehicle that allows you to make judgements about the hardware.

(Wine analogy: if you're drinking wine then the wine is the main point of interest and the goal, but to test a new glass and see how it works, you need to put some wine in it, at which point the focus shifts to the size of the opening, the shape and how well it swirls round the liquid, etc.)

(2) Critical listening for me would be when one's particularly attentive to the shape / form / structure / style / etc. of the musical composition and/or of the performance. One might listen critically to a new composition (to see if it's any good), and certainly to different performances of the same work, or to soloists, etc., to home in on aspects of their playing: timing, phrasing, bowing, intonation, etc.

(3) Emphathetic listening (non-critical listening, but not "background" listening) would be more when one's trying more to enter into the spirit of the music, enjoy it for what it is, to connect with it more, well..., emphathetically.

Obviously these aren't hard-and-fast categories, and they certainly aren't mutually exclusive. I'm just trying to pin down tendencies or emphases. I would say that (2) and (3) are equally "attentive", but (2) is more "critical" than (3), in the sense that different sets of faculties are emphasized in each case (intellec vs. emotion). Again, I recognize the limitations of this description (as in what happens, say, when one listens to a Bach fugue). Anyway, this FWIW.

Some of your threads suggest a sense of angst.Try going a week without thinking about cables or a lack of transparency in the upper range.Select a stack of wax that inspired you in days gone by.Play it concentrating only on the music.If necessary handcuff yourself to the chair so you can't get up to tweak.If the sound is so imperfect you can't stand it,kick it to the curb and get something else.Remember always that many people in the world are happy with a Bose Wave.Just listen to the music.

Practical case in point:
It is difficult to drive my beloved MA-2 Mk.III Atmas into clipping on my U-1PX Sound Labs with normal listening levels. But they do, when I try to listen to a Steinway at more or less normal concert levels. They clip very politely, however they do and it takes away from the enjoyment and I slip, without wanting to, for a short moment from the listening to the auditioning level but snap out of it once that moment has passed, especially with Martha Argerich playing Liszt's sonata in B minor on LP, DG 2530193, a wonderfully recorded piece of piano music, which has tremendous dynamic swings and covers the entire range the grand piano is capable of. I love Argerich and I love Liszt, and for once this is a splendid DG recording.
Today I had the chance to listen to the same music with VTL Siegfrieds in my rig for the first time. Naturally I started in the "auditioning mode", but then when in the "allegro energico" at the first fortissimo no clipping occurred, but contrary to before the full pure sound of the lower registers of the Steinway filled my room, I blissfully slipped into "listening mode" until the end. I sat in the dark and just listened.

Generally I try to keep both modes strictly separated, tweaking, testing apart from listening enjoyment and if the rig is more or less stable and doing what it is supposed to, this is not too difficult. There are software changes of course, but if you leave it be, I find, that the ear adapts fairly quickly and you accept how it sounds, if it is NOT the rig. For me the rig has to serve the music, not vice versa, so I try to keep auditioning sessions short but intense. 90% of the time I listen, but will snap out of it, if something goes wrong. If that is the case I'll audition until the problem is identified and I have do decide if I must live with it or can solve it within the range of my possibilities. I have a benchmark which I compare the sound of my rig to and that is the "gestalt" of all sorts of live music, which I carry within me. I've listened to Martha Argerich a lot within live events, when we both were young and until now, as we are much older and I believe I know how a pianoforte should sound when she has her hands on it and her feet on the pedals. Today, as I came a tad closer to the real thing, I stopped auditioning and the rest was just bliss. The rig served the music and that, as far as I am concerned, is how it should be.