Big +1s on both @whart @ghdprentice and as always well reasoned and well said based on years of hard-won experience. The only one small thing I’d mention is, for most of us, budget almost always comes into play. This is what brought me to my end — or at least my end as I can afford it now what with two teenagers headed toward college, etc. My HeadFi rig all in comes to about $7k and for that budget I’ve optimized as best I can and for my tastes everything from power conditioner to streamer/source to amp/DDC/DAC, to ‘phones and all the cables in between and I’m perfectly happy now and want for nothing. Could it be better, and maybe even a lot better? Hell yeah, but I’ve done through research and trial and error the best I think I can do at what I could spend, and I’m really happy every time I listen. Now, I can either drive myself nuts thinking about the next thing I could improve but can’t afford, or I can just sit back and enjoy where I’ve currently landed, and I much prefer the latter. To me, the key is getting your setup, whatever your budget, to the point where everything just sounds “right” TO YOU and there’s nothing or little that offends your senses or sounds unnatural or wrong. That’s where I am with both my home and HeadFi systems, and while I may tweak here or there in the future as budget allows for what look like meaningful improvements or as significant technological advances provide, I’m just damn happy where I’ve landed and with what I hear. And like the very sage advice I think that was provided by whart and ghdprentice above, work within your budget to get to a place where you’re happy and then just friggin’ stop and enjoy your efforts and the music. Life’s too short to just keep chasing your tail for the “next big thing.” Not sure I answered anything here, but I think a true audiophile trusts their ears and can tell when they’re truly happy. Stop there for awhile and just enjoy the fruits of your effort until something REALLY significant piques your audiophile self and then maybe think about opening the wallet again if possible. Do the work you need to get happy and then do what we should all be doing and just enjoy the music. If you can’t just do that, then you know something’s wrong or maybe your priorities could be a bit outta whack. Ok, I’ve babbled far too long and maybe gone nowhere, but this is all I got for what I thought was a very good and thoughtful question for many here. Enjoy!!!
Head-Fi can be so hardcore
I was going through the IER Z1R thread on HF and the lengths some people go to to squeeze every last bit of sound (pun intended) out of their stuff make my eyes water.
To each their own but it seems like some (many?) people use music to listen to their gear, and I wonder if they even enjoy music or is it just something to justify their investments...
OTOH, reading that thread does make me wonder if I'm underutilizing mine, now I have to guard myself against bad financial decisions...