Is the equipment doing its job?Does it allow me a gateway into the performance? Those are my main questions. It does and it has done for a while now.
It may surprise you to know that I ask the same* question. However the conclusion I reached a long time ago is that once I have reached a certain level of performance the equipment makes little difference. I don't thank my stereo at the end of each performance, nor do I blame it. The gateway is always open.
The problem IMHO is over the question- how much responsibility do you think your hifi should have for fluctuations in your musical enjoyment? I think there is an unarticulated assumption around hifi forums that the kit deserves a considerable degree of the credit or blame for musical enjoyment. This is why someone can ask in all honesty whether the equipment is a gateway, without it seeming odd. But it is isn't a bit odd isn't it? is the equipment really
blocking access to the performance? Do you need it? How?
It is often remarked on this forum that lots of musos don't care about what they what listen to music on. (Although equally some do). Equally one might often think to read the posts on hifi forums that the posters seem to think they enjoy music
more than the poor idiots who listen to MP3s on cheap headphones connected to their phones. And yet the idiots do look kind of happy. Why is it that music often sounds great when you are driving? Or cycling? No doubt we all draw our own conclusions.
For my own part I am inclined to the view that over-associating the equipment with the musical result is unhelpful; it's not that the kit can't make any difference, just that its effect is more on one's mood and ability to marshal one's interest in the component to revive a relative lack of interest in the music. These days I therefore allow my interest in listening to music on my stereo to ebb and flow. When it ebbs, I do not rush out to buy a new component in order to revive my interest in listening to my stereo (or was it music?) .
Paradoxically, this doesn't entirely cure me of my interest in the kit, but it makes me look at it in a different way. Of course I am interested in a really better bit of kit but I'm not auditioning daily, and I won't rush out to fill the vacancy. The bar for doing the job (where there is a job to do) may be low. The bar for a price of kit actually attracting my interest is high. Equally, given my approach, it really does matter rather a lot
to me to distinguish information which really is about the kit, from information which is really about people's enjoyment of their hobby in a rather different way.
*sort of; not
quite the same.