How much is about the recording

On my system the difference is absolutely staggering. Not too many recordings sound horrible, but man the really great recordings are just mind boggling. I will be finishing a room for listening in the near future. Very anxious to see what proper setup and treatments can do for those less than stellar recordings.

I am there. Happy with the gear I have, in the context of my listening habits, living space and room limitations (that are many).

Not a single gear expense in the last 6 months, just musical joy, which was all what was intended to start with  

Big deal to me. Fortunate to have an acoustically treated dedicated listening room. Figured out the setup. Now it's all about the recording quality. I grade every album I hear A,B,C,D based solely on sound quality.

In my collection I'm hearing about 10% class A, 50% class B, 30% class C, and 10% class D.

The key is to get the music you like to sound as good as it can. If you take your system too far in one direction, you'll end up with 3 CDs that sound extremely good and everything else will sound terrible.