@w123ale as I read your original post I was nodding my head yes.As you already see you definitely aren't alone. I'm at the point myself where I know my room needs a little more help but my overall satisfaction is 90+% with how the music sounds.I don't want to replace anything and throw off the balance. I just replaced my CDT reluctantly expecting the worst, days or weeks of tweaking.Big sigh of relief when it fit right in and was an improvement.
Warm vs Revealing—the struggle for balance
For me my upgrade path has been finding balance between warmth and dynamics/detail.
It’s looks something like this: find satisfaction (Raven Nighthawk + Tekton), get upgrade bug seeking more dynamics, get more revealing gear (Ma 352), feel fatigued, buy new tubes (Telefunken) and speakers (SF Olympica); want more dynamics (Mc 601 + c50), I immediately get tube pre because of fatigue (c2300), still too sharp (new tubes and DAC); excellent balance, but of course sell speakers, new speakers too revealing, buy Cardas cables to replace Wireworld (ahh just right for now, but may be a little more revealing might be nice).
And oh yeah, working on fixing the damn room problems!
Chasing the unicorn.
Anyone else doing this back and forth?