That's definitely true! This, I think, is the major misunderstanding about HiFi - high fidelity means highly faithful, i.e. the equipment is designed to create

That's definitely true! This, I think, is the major misunderstanding about HiFi - high fidelity means highly faithful, i.e. the equipment is designed to create a faithful reproduction, and not to needlessly embellish. If the track you are listening to was recorded in some teenager's bedroom on a crappy cassette deck, then it should sound as such. This is equally as important as being able to pick out the detail on a track that has been produced with all the latest state of the art equipment. Music is fundamentally about communication of emotion that transcends language and the purpose of a good HiFi is to facilitate that communication. However, when it comes to consuming things like video content, particularly that made for youtube, tiktok, etc. then it is probably unfaithful to even attempt to listen to it on a high-end system, just as you say. It's like eating MacDonald's in a michelin starred restaurant or scranning gourmee steak from a takeaway container while drunk on a street corner at three in the morning: context matters. See also: https://hard-drive.net/hd/entertainment/100-gecs-song-blasting-out-of-busted-iphone-speakers-exactly-how-it-was-meant-to-be-played/ https://hard-drive.net/hd/entertainment/100-gecs-song-blasti...