When I was 14, my older brother brought home an Alice Cooper cassette tape and my whole world changed. Until then, I didn't know there was music out there that was different from Top 40 pop on the radio.
After that awakening, I listened to everything. My paper-route money went for tapes and I bought as many as I could. Later, I spent my savings on system of my own with a turntable. After that, I bought new records every Saturday morning. Unlike most of my friends, I cared more about music than cars.
And over the years my system was upgraded continually. At one point, however, I felt like I had made a fetish out of the system and was listening to it rather than the music. Listening to a record felt like being in church. So I sold everything and didn't have any system for several years. Then I bought a mid-fi system, one which was good enough but far from state of the art. Ten years after that, I wanted to have what I used to have, so I bought some decent gear, but it still didn't sound like what I had nor what I wanted. So I upgraded to Bryston and found it to be better than what I had and all that I wanted from a system.
I still love good, clear music, but I don't fetishize it. If I play some music, I don't have to sit down and do nothing else but listen, as I used to do years ago. When I listen to music, I prefer that it be reproduced as well as possible, but it doesn't have to be perfect.
Timewise, most of my time per week listening to music is done in the gym with a Nano and Shure earphones, which is all I need there. The external noise there makes 'hi-fi' superfluous, and the music is ultimately what is most important.
But when I have the time, I like to listen closely to my system. I enjoy immensely the accurate, high-fidelity reproduction of good music. And in those still moments when I'm enjoying both the music and the system, the two together combine to stir my soul like nothing else quite does in this world.
