Do you listen to equipment or music.

I found the best way to return to listening to the music (as opposed to analysing equipment it was being played upon) was by playing those songs I love the best. The songs with the greatest emotional significance to me.

For example, classics like James Taylor's Fire and Rain, Joan Baez's Diamonds and Rust, Nick Drake's Magic, or Joni Mitchell's Answer Me, My Love etc are so enjoyable and compelling that sound quality concerns more or less disappear. These tracks sound great through anything, even a flat screen TV. 

The only time I get a little frustrated with sound quality nowadays is when I'm driving. The system in the car has always sounded a little washed out and lacking dynamics, and the CD player is broke.

So I'm stuck with FM radio with it's crass presenters and endless traffic of bad news interruptions - non stop Brexit waffle. Classic FM is my current favourite because there's more music and less news and talk. It makes many others here in the UK seem Ill mannered.

Even better, once in a while they will play a piece of music so compelling as to forget the poor sound quality in the car - it can happen! I guess if a piece of music really moves you, it can break the audiophile habit of constantly analysing and remind you again why you got into this pastime in the first place.

@prof  yes, listening to equipment can very easily become a laborious chore where you easily find yourself going found in circles. I have nowhere near the self discipline or the methodology  required to keep it meaningful.

It's better if you have willing friends to help you, most likely audiophiles. But even then we hardly ever went beyond 20 minutes or so before the urge to put on an album and listen purely for pleasure took over.

Apart from that time when someone put on a Northern Soul album ... luckily the sofa was very comfortable and I could easily allow myself to nod off for it's duration.

@jhills, "My point is that, we as audiophiles, may get a little OCD and let a continual need for upgrades, tweaks and changes, take the place of periodically just sitting back, for a bit, to enjoy the music.."

I bet every one of us here (excepting perhaps the most cynical of dealers), is familiar with that feeling.

With me, the audio OCD was at its worst some 15 years ago. After spending almost a months wages on a cartridge that was barely an improvement upon it's predecessor (which cost less than a fifth of it's price, and ultimately proved superior), I began the long slow road to recovery. 

Of course, I'll never be cured, and don't want to be, but I do try to keep a perspective on all things audio. Friends and family help too. If that fails, I keep in mind the certainty that music is there to be enjoyed, not analyzed.

The Beatles 'Ticket to Ride' will still sound good on any system,
https://youtu.be/UHsN9d4FTVI

as will Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto 2  
https://youtu.be/rEGOihjqO9w

or Glenn Gould playing Bach's famous Aria from the Goldberg Variations.

https://youtu.be/Gv94m_S3QDo