GAH demoing SR ICs and I can't decide

You can check my system info out here on audiogon.

I'm demoing Accelerators and Acoustic Reference.

I started with Accelerator between the amp and pre, and the Acoustic between the pre and cd. I let them settle for a few days and absolutely loved the sound I was ready to just buy them and not even bother demoing the others. I did notice that on a couple of discs it seemed ever so slightly overly 'bloomy' in the midrange.

So I swapped the acoustic out for an Accelerator between the pre and CD. I noticed right off that this combo sounded much flatter and a bit thinner and some details and air missing and soundstage shrunk.

I let them play for a few days before passing judgement though and they did open up a lot.

But I missed some of the attributes of the accoustic, including the warmth.

So I swapped those back in and while I gained the things I missed back, now I missed some aspects of the accelerator and things seemed too rounded. It's like it needed a bit more speed and midrange slam.

I'm wondering if it's because they'd been out of the system for a few days and moved about the room a few times and coiled back up into the box and needed time to settle back in again?

*sigh*

I almost wonder if the precision reference would be a better balance with the acoustic reference than the accelerator is but I can't afford the precision yet.

this is so hard. lol.

Does anyone know how SRs upgrade path works? I know if you buy new through an authorized dealer you get lifetime upgrade value towards future cables.

I was thinking bet the accelerator and acoustic now, then later upgrade the accelerator to a precision and then eventually replace the acoustic with an apex. It would be a shorter upgrade path than starting with two pairs of accelerators.