The most cost effective way to audio nirvana is to play the long game and make slow calculated moves. Once a new component is purchased, it takes its place and the system becomes your reference system. It will sound different than every other system out there. So then you go about characterizing what would be the next single component that would move your system the direction you want to go the most.
Spend lots of time reading professional reviews. Listen to components. But always remember when at a store they don’t have the same components and the sound is the sum of the different components… interconnects also. With the Mac you are in a whole new class of product. You should be able to bring home a preamp or have the dealer bring over speakers to test. Or reconfigure a system in a listening room to be like yours. Also, a dealer that you establish a good working relationship can help you craft the sound. It makes it easier and more fun. A dealer that knows his stuff can help educate you as well. Ideally your system can be built in partnership with one ore two dealers.
The best way to spend a lot of money and not enjoy the pursuit, and not end up with the system you want is to just rapidly swap components, unless you enjoy the swapping / high stakes game. But each move should result (more and more) in you getting the change you expected… meaning you are learning what different components in your system sounds like. In the last couple decades every component upgrade I have made sounded exactly as I expected it would. Even speakers I had never heard but read extensively about.
