Do you listen to equipment or music.

I heard my first real stereo system while serving in Vietnam in 1971 and have been hooked ever since. Maybe not surprisingly, my preference runs toward gear from the 70s era when I want to listen to music and not be concerned with the equipment. But even then, gear from that era has an edge due to its amazing visual image. I guess it all depends what was going on at the time your audiophile/stereoholic affliction began. Anyway, I say let's all have fun and enjoy the hobby.

 

The Audiophile community makes up a super set that is composed of two subgroups, Equipment-philes and Music-philes. These subsets do have a union as many audiophiles belong to both groups. Those who belong to the Music-phile group are in it for the music but do see audio equipment as a means to allow them to best enjoy and fully connect with the music, but the difference is once they have reached a level where they are fully achieving that, they are done. Equipment-philes are never done because their goal is to always upgrade to the best they can afford. Music-philes have a satisfaction end point while Equipment-philes don't because they are on a journey with no end.

And as a Music-phile, I would personally like to thank all the Equipment-philes for continually demanding higher standards and pushing the audio envelope for better products and being willing to buy these higher-end products so that we Music-philes can also realize the benefits. But make no mistake it is the Equipment-philes that should get the credit for pushing the industry forward.

Some very good responses and a great topic, indeed. 
This hobby, for me at least, is about enjoying the music. But, I have fallen deep into the rabbit hole. Just ask my enabler audiofoo friends. ( yes, audiofoos because we are fools when it comes to this...!) 
 Generally, Newbee, Millercarbon and Schroeder get it right, IMHO.
 

the equipment is merely a means to an end and that end should be  what sounds great to you and particularly on the music you love.

Rabbit hole, indeed!

After giving it a lot of thought, I believe the mechanisms of listening for sound and music are almost unrelated.  Somehow, audiophilia gets involved in our ego, 
even our self worth, so the quest is ever ongoing.  When we listen for music, it’s a soul gratifying endeavor with no need to prove anything.  If anything, it nourishes the self.

That will be two cents please, for the analysis.

The audiophile community is NOT composed of simply two subgroups, it seems more like wildly varying shades of both camps at once. I keep things in my gear heap until something dies or I actually feel like something needs improvement, or I just WANT a new thing...that's rare, but hey...it happens. I have a friend who spends piles on what I feel is unnecessarily expensive redundancies, but he's wound pretty tight...and my rig sounds better...HA...it is all about the music, I sit in the sweet spot for hours mesmerized by it, and mix live shows for brilliant musicians from time to time (trust me...get into THAT biz...it's worth it). Buy stuff, listen to music through it, and calm down DAMMIT! (breathe...I gotta breathe...)

I am new at this.  I think the majority of audiophiles listen to the quality of the sound rather than to just the music.  Why else do they continue to search for better and better equipment.  Why else would someone sell their old equipment and upgrade the new?  To me it is all about the sound and not necessarily about the music itself.  Why do you think people buy high end cars?

s2000cr,

My gosh man, you must have been around before the Dead Sea was even sick!...:-)

Sorry all. My post was a little over the top for this thread...had more than one Agon browser open and accidentally posted here thinking I was posting in another thread...oopsies My bad. Hope no one here was killed in the melee.

AFA this topic goes, I've been trying to wrap up a nearly 3-year period of almost entirely listening to the gear rather than the music, although lately as I've closed in on my sq goals I've recently had much more opportunity to return to the music. 

It can be very difficult to break on thru to the other side with it, much easier for most to do that in stages over time, but it definitely can be done. So looking forward in another year or so to have gotten the setup across the finish line and I can focus entirely on the music again! May even get a few more lumps on my head for more new kinds of music, too.

I have wrestled with and written about this dichotomy for years. I believe the "gear" side is the hobbyist side of the, er, hobby, and the listening is the music side. Each serves the other, but if it gets too far toward the gear side, (swapping out components, comparing cables etc.), then you are missing the point, or at least having a somewhat hollow experience. Why improve your playback system if not to more fully appreciate music playback? The audiophile that keeps his equipment for many years without change and just uses it to listen to music is usually a happier bloke. Did any of you listen to Mahler orgies in college on a KLH suitcase stereo with 10% distortion and one channel blown? I did, and it was still a rich and memorable experience.

Interesting discussion.

Back in the late 70’s I sold equipment at a high end shop in DC and as I got to be a better salesman I found I was pretty much wasting my time with those who listened to equipment before listening to the music, they hardly ever bought anything!

I had been on a 5 or 6 year course of upgrading this, that and the other.  Now that I’m set with the hardware, I can relax and enjoy the music!

I sold a bunch in 70's as well . In 50 years + in audio I have bought many hundreds of pieces . ONLY thing I ever bought that I thought ugly were
phono carts .

The experience of great music on junky little devices is a phenomenon most of us have had. Some folks easily get into the great performance despite the poor equipment. A few, just are revolted by the sound so much they cannot listen.
Another form of this is the great performance with dismal sonics. being readily enjoyable on any system, average, good or spectacular. Verses average/blah performance with outstanding sonics that are the meat of some high end system owners listening.
Same animal.
To me, THAT is the division between music listeners, and equipment mavens.

Hi everyone, 
my name is josh. It’s been 9 months and 7 days since I last opened my “testing” playlist.
:)

My testing playlist is my general favorites. To me, the fact i know my favorites inside out upside down is the best reason to use them.When I get a surprise.. something I really never heard or noticed before THAT gets my attention when auditioning some new equipment.

In my case I buy equipment that I think will inprove the sound of the music in my system When that upgrade happens I listen to the music the upgrade produces not the equipment itself. 

It’s been 9 months and 7 days

Josh, give it another week and you'll be considered late term. : )

Again..tenured music lover.  As a hobby, it's natural to want to move on and "get closer" over time.  For me, the home run is the music, and no nostalgia to what gets me there.  I don't marry the gear.  I'm fully awakened when a tweak or gear improvement "freshens" your entire collection, yet again!  Nor am I saddened when things seem to get a little tired and boring.  It simply means it's time to get more creative somewhere in your system.  There is ALWAYS something one can do, even if it simply means turning your electrical panel mains and circuits on-off a couple times every 6 months.  Loudspeaker placement and DSP adjustments also can freshen everything without cost...sometimes I prefer more center-fill, sometime more depth of field or stage-width.  It's all an amazing illusion, after all, play with it!  More peace, Pin.

Ok, this may be a little off point, but you'll see - it ties in.

I have a sister that is clinically OCD. She will sometimes clean and re- arrange her house until she literally drops from exhaustion. She got this thing, awhile back, about collecting rocks to line her driveway. After collecting a good number of various sized and shaped rocks (on every walk she took, on every ride she took, from neighbors wanting to get rid of their rocks, etc. etc.) ranging from 20 - 40 lbs. she got enough to nicely line her driveway. Her OCD would not let her stop at that, now she has a one acre sized yard covered with pile after pile of rocks. I jokingly told her that she should contact Mr. T. and offer to build his wall and could even bring her own rocks - don't think she appreciated the humor.
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.......Jim

may be a bit simplistic but don't we all do both?
Otherwise I may as well have stuck with my National Panasonic Transistor 8 from 1968.
Sometimes, like most of us I'd imagine, something might not sound quite right to me (equipment listening) but then the next album or song sounds sublime (music listening) and I know that it is more of a recording short-coming than anything.

Yes, I upgrade but tend to keep using components for years until they fail or I hear something radically better because of a known and acknowledged weak link - like replacing my PC with an Antipodes server/streamer.
Johnspain, if you have used a good set-up disc/LP to attain good stereo imaging etc and are repositioning speakers during a listening session, it is more likely a recording fault imho.

I'm a little late to the party, but I was so impressed by elizabeth's response, I had to chime in. She is absolutely correct, you have to listen to the equipment to get the system dialed in. When you catch yourself engrossed in the music, that's when you know the equipment is right.

s2000cr
I got "Bitten" in 1952, just before Stereo entered. I can recall my first
experience at Audio House (Detroit) in 1954, listening to an RCA tape
of Alzo Sprach Zarathustra on Berlant Concertone deck, 2 Mc 50w
monoblocks, an two Stentorian (west coast) speakers. We kept repeating
the 22(?) hz organ pedal intro in utter fascination.
Battle? No contest. Even mid-fi in stereo won out. As for Consoles vs.
Separates? For the expanding number of true Audiophiles, Consoles
were a commercial cop-out. 
There's this: some Consoles sounded OK by themselves, but head-to-
head with separates ...?  To Audiophiles, not radio-phono customers,
no battle whatever.
Think of the effort and design that went into a 1960 preamp: The
top-line equipment compensated for the disparate recording curves,
provide recording inputs, "loudness", etc.,etc. 
Lord, it was exciting to have lived thru all that audio emergence. Some
of that tube equipment, lovingly up-dated, is still highly prized,
and by some very critical Sound Nuts!

s2000cr
I got "Bitten" in 1952, just before Stereo entered. I can recall my first
experience at Audio House (Detroit) in 1954, listening to an RCA tape
of Alzo Sprach Zarathustra on Berlant Concertone deck, 2 Mc 50w
monoblocks, an two Stentorian (west coast) speakers. We kept repeating
the 22(?) hz organ pedal intro in utter fascination.
Battle? No contest. Even mid-fi in stereo won out. As for Consoles vs.
Separates? For the expanding number of true Audiophiles, Consoles
were a commercial cop-out. 
There's this: some Consoles sounded OK by themselves, but head-to-
head with separates ...?  To Audiophiles, not radio-phono customers,
no battle whatever.
Think of the effort and design that went into a 1960 preamp: The
top-line equipment compensated for the disparate recording curves,
provide recording inputs, "loudness", etc.,etc. 
Lord, it was exciting to have lived thru all that audio emergence. Some
of that tube equipment, lovingly up-dated, is still highly prized,
and by some very critical Sound Nuts!

O-ops - Hit the button twice.  Sorry - must be past my bed time!

I don’t know but since I get carried away by Jazz music in my Altima
which likely cost Nissan 10 bucks for all 4 speakers it may be the music .
I am certain the space has a LOT to do  with it .

@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

@david_ten 

mixing my sobriety metaphor with your pregnancy metaphor hopefully results in many full terms of musical enjoyment and not postpartum depression 

In all seriousness, couldn’t be more happy to have nine + months of not thinking about any tweaks or upgrades (after almost a full year of trying way too much gear). Nice to know you can hit an endgame plateau (I acknowledge there may be others in the future) where the sound is so good that music and musical discovery is all one is interested in and is what makes you look forward to getting home.

that said, every once in a while I discover a piece of music that shows of the quality of my system in a new way and I say “sh*t my system sounds good!”.... then I go back listening to the music.

There’s hope.

Music first. It's all about the music for me. It's by biggest love and passion. I enjoy my system a lot and tweak it endlessly but the bottom line is the music. At times I disconnect from the critical listening and I just play music to enjoy it. 

Like most of you, I listen to equipment when something changes and music the rest of the time EXCEPT...

I NEED to be able to hear what the singer is saying. I just can't forget everything and drift into that wonderful state of floating with the music if I can't make out the words. I,m always disappointed when I buy an album and the lyrics (and musicians by track) aren't included. Luckily, I can almost always find them on line.

As a sideline...I'm involved in live music as a musician and live sound engineer. Talk to the sales people in either of the High End shops I live near and not only do they not do little "house concerts" at their shops (ask about that fact and note the bewildered response), they're generally unaware of live shows nearby, and often have very narrow musical tastes as if actual live music doesn't matter much. 

I think that most people had never listen to the true potential quality sound of their already good audio gear,because of the lack of proper means for cleaning EMI And RFI, and eliminating mechanical vibrations... Then because of that subconcious and conscious insatisfaction they listen to sound not to music in the hope to detect the problem...I know that because before my experiments in cleaning I was not satisfied by the same gear which I am in love now, the difference is that I listen now to the same equipment at his true quality top level...Cleaning is the beginning and the end in audio...After that when you hear an organic realistic holographic equilibrated sound that transform in music at the end, you listen, and forget the hype and the upgrading virus...

I think mahgister is on the right track. After I moved up to Magnepan 20.7 and bought a high end digital device, I started upgrading the AC bits (already had two good power conditioners) I have to say replacing decent ordinary duplex with Furutech really moved the whole to greater clarity.Adding (7) Ps Audio Nose Sniffers, using the blinking, and then a noise sniffer borrowed from a dealer, I was able to place those to be effect.

Whew... Didn’t think that I was the only one out there in this way. Yes, it is both music and equipment. Truth be told, it is mostly equipment IF the recording is up to it. Right now, I am listening to an amature recording (better than you would expect) of which I personally know the artists. So I can pass off the sonic expectations in turn for the music/performance itself. I do set the volume, tone, dimension controls for the best rendition. After that, it is the music.
I am more of an experimenter by nature, and love hearing the results of my efforts. The same held true when used to work on my mountain bike, attempting to get the smoothest shifting, best handling, etc. Either way, I tend to like the physics of all things earth, and am fascinated with that which seems to be  beyond.

My gear does not sound the same before and after cleaning the electrical grid and the audio grid...There is no relation between the sound of my Sansui,Mission speakers and Dac and headphone, before and after the cleaning, no relation...I was so disappointed by my gear that I had plenty of money in my purse I would had sell all my equipment to upgrade to TOTL costly pieces... And I know exactly which pieces I would had bought, the cost total would be 25 thousand dollars, for speakers,dac,amp,and headphone and they would have been relatively or even absolutely better certainly...But never mind my dreams of supreme audio system heaven, I dont had money at this times and not more now...

Then I go for exploratory experiments and tweaks, and vibrations control,room treatment, and last and foremost cleaning the 2 grids, the audio one and the house electrical one...That cost me some more money but 25 times less in total...The end results was I enjoy really what I have and does not read with too much envy or greed the audio hype new costly product...I enjoy music now and that is the important thing...The truth is people most of the times dont know the real quality sound potential of their own gear because of noise, and almost all people underestimate noise and dont know what a noise level is in electronics.....What noise they say? "My amplifier cost me 12 thousands bucks and is state of the art"...For them it is the end of discussion...

By the way when a good system sound at his peak musicality, you listen to the majority of your cd or files, and cannot interrupt the music of the files or cd playing right now because this is so good listening...You forget then to verify frequencies and other cues about the sound...This is my experience after cleaning...Before that my inconscious ears was never pleased because the noise was muddying too much the quality of the sound...And I was dreaming to buy something new, or searching for a cd that will sound better than the other last one...Now almost all sound good, except the worse for sure, and I listen to music more than to sound...I cannot begins to listen a cd without finishing it completely lost in music... And it is with the same elements and equipment in the 2 cases...