Cost Effective System Improvement?

The best, most effective and probably cheapest upgrade is to improve the acoustics of your room.  A dozen or so 5' to 6' artificial Ficus trees scattered around the room will improve the sound more than new equipment.  There are easy to find at discount home dec stores.

If you really are serious about squeezing out the absolute max per dollar, this will be a lot of work, but I highly recommend studying mahgister. Where most of the work comes in, a lot of what he does will look to be honest rather kooky. But this is where you have to really study and learn your stuff. For example, what looks like empty old gas cans with soda straws coming out are helmholtz resonators. A helmholtz resonator is really any container (volume) of air with a restrictive passage leading in and out. Air pressure in the room flows through the passage into the container and back out again, losing energy in the process. The volume inside, together with the diameter and length of the passage, determines the frequency of sound that is most efficiently absorbed.   

Most people just buy these things and so never do understand what is going on. The design can be worked out mathematically, but then you have to know what frequency you want to tune, and work through the math. Or you can do the whole thing by ear, or start with a ballpark math estimate and fine tune by ear. Or use existing product designs as a starting point and creatively build and tune your own.  

This is just one example. His room and posts are chock full of them. Like I said, a lot of work. But for someone with plenty of time and willing to do the work I think you will be surprised how far these kinds of things can take you.

You're done! That's it! From this point it's all diminishing returns.  ;)

Thanks millercarcon but most people dont own an audio dedicated room...And my system is impossible to live with it and a wife in a living room...

I created it to prove to myself i could reach near the highest Hi-Fi to my satisfaction with basic good choosen gear yes, but embeddings controls at NO COST or very low without buying nothing by recreating some basic ideas or some costly devices...

Most people are better to be inspired by what you have which is Hi-FI, more beautiful...And more costly... Though...

 Anyway the truth is simple:  WE embed everything before ANY upgrade....

  

You’re done! That’s it! From this point it’s all diminishing returns. ;)

No you are right someone could always pay more to buy some difference....

This is somewhat true...

The half truth in your claim is that you dont say the essential: half of S.Q. comes from electrical,mechanical and Especially acoustical controls and treatment...At possibly low cost...Most of the times more than the upgrades you love so much....

Plugging new gear in a wall and putting ready made panels on a wall is not audiophile experience and reviewing them is of no use save to sell one....

Myself i sell common sense at no cost.... Try to beat me...Call me a fool...You could not have any other argument anyway....Save the common place fact that higher end engineering may cost a fortune and be "better"....For sure they are better.....

Acoustic, mechanical control, and even electrical noise floor control could cost low money though and are 50% of the S.Q....( The % is a metaphor and change in function of the relation of the gear with his embeddings controls or lack of)

The question is not, save for a fool, which is the better system in the world, but how can i create a very good satisfying one at lower cost....

But common sense is something that is harder to sell.... For sure.....




By the way you seems to not understand the law of diminushing returns at all.... Ask me and i will explain it to you....I dont joke here... You dont have a clue it seems by the unilateral  way you use it....