I recently had the same dilemma, but took some sound advice: change sources, amps and speakers to change the flavour / character of your system; change DACs, pre-amps and cables to fine-tune it. So I recently bought a 2nd-hand Sonnet Morpheus DAC and a demo Primaluna Evo 400. Kept my Audiosolutions speakers, my Auralic Aries source, and my Ayon pre-amp, but I'm selling both my previous $5,000 (US) DAC and some $15,000 (US) mono-blocks. Couldn't be happier. You need to sort out the weak links in your system and do lots of research, but the answer doesn't always mean spending more, as there are some real audio 'pearls' out there and technology keeps moving on. In that regard, I would definitely think about MQA - despite what its many critics might say. I've dropped Quobuz and focused on Tidal because of it.
Which component to upgrade 1st ?
Hey folks here is my dilemma I have a budget of about 6K for a new component. I currently have Martin Logan Vantage speakers, Audio Research Ref75 amp, Audio Research LS17SE preamp, Rega P6 turntable, and a bluesound node (makes my ears hurt but you have to start somewhere) and a Chord Qutest dac. My wishlist includes Lumin T2, (sell Qutest and node), Audio Research Ref 5 used ( sell LS17SE), used Phono tube dac (currently have Mofi), or used Weiss 502 dac with either a Lumin U2 mini or Bricasti M5. I know start with source first but I can’t wrap my head around which toy first. Thoughts and be kind.