The audiophile hobby is inherently a pursuit of some ideal. That ideal might differ from person to person, but what I am curious about is how each of us define that ideal.
I kinda like where my system is at. I cue a well recorded track and think: damn that sounds good. But compared to what? Do I have a point of comparison to the original performance, the day it was recorded? Usually not. To use an overused album, unless I was sitting at the Olympia concert hall in Paris when Diana Krall performed there in 2001 and have a perfect auditory memory, how do I know my system if reproducing it with “fidelity”?
If the pursuit of perfection is useless as perfection is an illusion, how do you all define your level of satisfaction or achievement in this audiophile pursuit?
Its even worse than you think. Even if you were there, and even if space aliens from the future set you up with the perfect system in the perfect room, still you play it back and wtf it still does not sound the same. Why? Because you forgot to rub the lamp and ask Genie for the perfect recording system!
Okay so you do that. And... still not right!?!?!? What the...!!?!?!?
So you saddle up your unicorn and fly up to the guru on the mountain top who says, you forgot to ask for the perfect recording format! D'oh! Coulda had a V8!
Or you could be like me, order some new speakers, and be happy if they can just somehow manage to be less bad than the ones that came before.