Regarding the sheer sound quality requirements, there are genres that actually demand it - nothing but the best available would do, while still leaving the space to desire more - and thus fuel the need to develop better gear that, eventually, should close the gap of live vs recorded sound once and for all.
There is nothing as demanding as contemporary music - where the composers would leave no stone unturned, be it either the frequency range, dynamic range and/or direction of the sound..
I certainly can listen to familiar music recorded less than optimally and/or on limited capabilities equipment. But, I would have enjoyed it more if the recording and playback equipment would be better- absolutely no doubt about that.
I see absolutely no point in listening to a superbly recorded "extreme" music on poor equipment - or vice versa.
Somewhere above, I have seen 100 K $ mentioned as being some sort of "limit" or "guarantee" to be able to truly appereciate the difference between say lossless to compressed audio.
There is no such thing ... - only in one's head. I have seen - and HEARD - systems well north of 100K that not only struggled, but frankly failed at reproducing a decent uncompressed recording. Most audiophile oriented gear generally can not reproduce more dynamic range than possible with conventional analogue record .
One extreme case for the absolute requirement for the equipment to be at least "unobjectionable" is electronic portable organ player
https://www.cameroncarpenter.com/.
To fill the actual music hall with the sound that does not look an absolutely pale Minimundus
https://www.minimundus.at/en/ copy of the real thing , the speakers HAVE TO BE UP TO THE TASK. He has been playing at the Cankarjev dom, in the Gallus hall, which sportra very good real organ instrument - and could , at very least, hold his own - even in A HALL OF THIS SIZE:
https://www.google.si/url?sa=i&sour...aw3BcYdjJVAJbCGIE8Ublncb&ust=1548079035585097
It was a reality check regarding equipment for the audiophiles being grossly and outrageously overpriced - as similar speakers as used by him in audiophile livery sell for many times multiple of the normal pro use price.
Such equipment/price limitations apply FAR less in headphone world - and this IS head-fi. No reason one could not put together a decent headphone system for say under 2 k that could support hirez ( 88.2 kHz sampling and above ) and make recent topic of limited bandwidth RBCD vs lossy storm in a teacup - moot for good.