I could have never gotten here without going on near fifty years experience at least listening to relatively high end systems. The building in earnest has taken place over last nearly thirty years. As with some others, I purchased much used components over the years, sold with little loss, incremental gains.
I can't see how you can gain knowledge of what your sound preferences are without experience of having heard and/or built a number of systems over some years. I built systems with SS and less efficient speakers, push pull tubes with various power tubes, medium efficient speakers, and finally a variety of SET with extremely efficient speakers. I've had single driver, two way, three way, multi driver speakers, box, open baffle, horn speakers. I've had any number of turntables, belt drive and direct drive, many dacs. I've gone from cd's to streaming, with streaming being rather like building an entire system in itself. I've modded much equipment over the years, even learned how much individual parts can change sound quality.
I've gone from overly analytical to overly romantic systems. I've had systems both lacking and excelling in various parameters of audiophile attributes.
All this costs time and money, I couldn't have done it any other way. The amazing thing is, while I'm still modifying and changing peripheral items in system, I could live with exact present system for the rest of my audiophile life. I've been experiencing completely satisfying performers in room experience for perhaps two year now, while some of the minor changes I've made in that time have been lateral or backward moves, listening sessions have remained totally satisfying. I consider I'm now in final phase of audiophile experience, the place where you've attained the goals you set so many years ago.