Forget all the equipment, forget the music, at the end of the day it's just literally frequencies and their effects on your brain. That's what's everyone's essentially after.
If you hear a C-major chord with an equal temperament, you've heard it a million times before and your brain accepts it. But if you hear a chord that you've never heard before, you're like, "huh.
If you've got a stick hitting a drum and you're programming it on a computer, it's so much more interesting than a sample playing back - it's something in the air, that's the magical ingredient.
It always sounds more right to me when it's detuned. When it's right in tune, it's like there's something slightly off. But at the end of the day, it's all about frequencies and what they do to you. That's the real core.