Would you go all 1 brand for electronics?

Given that money comes in uneven increments or at least that is how it is for me, throwing down enough to buy a whole stack at one time has been a completely impossible thing all my life. Everything I have acquired in home audio gear has been done in an opportunistic way...a piece from here or there - maybe a yard sale, or end of year clearance model bought at an after christmas sale, or occasionally something bought new because there was a short term surplus not needed for other things. Or a replacement for an item that just died and was beyond resurrection.  It is in fact a hobby and as such it cannot be allowed to take monies that need to go elsewhere to keep the household afloat. I am slowly recovering the huge losses of last year and will probably never get back to where I was, but I will get back to a place where I can say "its good enough for who it’s for" and being content with what you have is a skill some of us audiophools struggle with I think.

     This reminds of a discussion I had with a friend of mine some years ago. He had come over to the house for dinner, my wife was out of town and it was just he and I. We both like scotch quite a bit and I had a couple of different quality levels in the house at the time. I do not remember what brands but I told him what I had and he chose the cheaper of the two when given a choice...and I asked him why that one and not the more expensive, presumably better one. His answer was "well you know I have come to realize that while I can appreciate the more expensive one, my palate is not so discerning that I require the high end Scotch. So I buy what is a good value and I am content with that. Sometimes its to your advantage not to be too picky." On that note we toasted ourselves and sipped while dinner cooked. And I am the same way about audio gear. If its good enough then why spend more? I have limited funds to direct at equipment, so a good value for me is stuff that ticks all the functional boxes and has no glaring sonic or operational issues. Electronics have gotten so good that many amplifiers are literally a straight wire with gain and it almost doesn’t matter which one you choose as long as it handles the speaker impedance and has enough power to drive the speakers. That was not true 50 years ago.

Source components like streamers and the Dac/preamps available today perform at such a high level its remarkable. I continue to be amazed at the sound quality available from a computer connected to a DAC via USB. Holy cow, this is ridiculously good. I don’t miss vinyl at all other than just nostalgically. To want to clean records and fuss with the turntable and then be careful not to walk to heavily for fear of upsetting the playing record...not for me anymore. To those that cherish the ritual, I get it, but its just not in my wheelhouse anymore.

As I get older and my hearing deteriorates there are parts of the spectrum I just cannot hear anymore. I can hear to about 15k but anything above that is lost on me. Probably too many Grateful Dead concerts in college...

Yes, definitely. I am currently enjoying an, almost, complete kit from PBN Audio... M1!5 speakers, EB-SA ss amp and Olympia LX preamp. It's potent and seamless. 

I prefer the source coming from an OEM.

Money no object options would include Conrad-Johnson ART or MSB Technologies. Whooof.