I am completely satisfied even if upgrading is always possible ...
Why ?
Because there is a treshold of mininmal acoustic satisfaction...
This minimal threshold is not when you reach more details perception , it is when all details are not there for their own sake but they are there musically, organically and dont impede the global musical impression and do not grab any attention for themselves ...The Room/system is then balanced....
This minimal threshold is defined not by gear price but by acoustics concepts , timbre, dynamic, transients, distortion, immersiveness, bass etc all acoustics concepts you must learn to control IN A ROOM....
There exist also a marginal upgrading improvement most confuse with minimal and maximal acoustic satisfaction threshold...And some go from marginal improvement to another upgrading marginal improvement in some race toward more costlier which they called : high end ...most of the times it is not...All high end system need a high end acoustic room for example not a costlier speakers upgrade... 😁
One thing is sure, when a system is really "musical" and acoustically satisfying in a minimal or maximal way (with a dedicated room acoustic) all albums are so interesting even the badly recorded , that listening music takes all your time and money...
half the time if not most of the times upgrading a piece of gear or even your system only reveal that you dont have learned what is electrical,mechanical and acoustical controls and then ,instead of learning how, you succumb to the tentation of the market publicity... It is very easy if you had the money...It is way harder to learn acoustic and use a dedicated acoustic room and sometimes it is costlier as mike lavigne said so about his dedicated room ...
You can say for sure that i am wrong and a poor dude unable to afford a 100,000 bucks system in his living room and you can claim that i am envious... Some did .😁
You can think otherwise also and realize that acoustic is the main key not the system price tags called High-end... ( anyway my headphone system is high end by the way )😊
Remember that i do not pretend that my ACTUAL minimally satisfied acoustic threshold rival the maximal threshold... I only claim that many people with costlier system are way under the maximal satisfaction threshold because they bought costlier design without paying attention to the acoustics, and electrical and mechanical controls with their past less costlier systems ...
Ask yourself why someone in acoustic ectasy will throw so much money to "upgrade" ? this only means that his system is not able to give acoustic ectasy for sure... When the sound grab our attention instead of the music , our system lack something that most of the times cannot be reach only by improvised costlier upgrades suggested by marketing ...
We must learn how to put what we already own at his OPTIMAL level BEFORE upgrading ...
All this is contested by some proud owner of 100,000 bucks system calling any 1000 bucks system low-fi...😁 Sorry but audio is knowledge and acoustics not price tags bragging... And in the many cases when someone system is better than mine by design , be sure that i am not so much far behind and it is me who smile with a 1000 bucks system compared to their money investment... We are not all budget open here ...
Learning something is more fun than owning something always ...
When the sound different aspects are acoustically balanced, they vanish behind the immersiveness of the music... The last thing you think about in ectasy is : with what very costlier piece must i upgrade tomorrow ? 😁
People OFTEN upgrade when they are no more satisfied and bored by music because their system is not well embedded ...they are not in ectasy for sure... They think the only way is buying more and more...
Acoustics is the audio main key... Electrical and mechanical control the other key... upgrading is not a key, it is the explicit confession that a system is not balanced and you dont know how to correct it save buying more at higher price...
For sure we dont have all the time and the room to learn the acoustic basic, then we can define High end audio by price tags investment... Most do that...
I dont....