How good is good enough?

Good enough is when the last expensive upgrade didn't produce any noticeable improvements.    (Until the next toy comes along)

Many human species are spoiled by civilization and have buried the natural sense of enough. Even successful bank robbers get busted, because they don't turn on that quality sense. 

Good enough for what? Good enough to end my curiosity about what else might be possible - never. Good enough to bring me a lot of listening pleasure in my den - I can pick up everything I need for under $1000 at BestBuy. Good enough that I’d rather have it than not have anything? A pair of headphones for under $20 and my phone.

Curiosity is mostly what keeps me going. I haven’t found a lot of satisfaction in just upping the quality to stratospheric levels on various components. I’ve found more from trying unorthodox listening arrangements and speaker configurations. This kind of experimenting can get expensive, and the creations that don’t work well can’t be taken back, and don’t have much used market value. I consider myself lucky if I can give the stuff away. Fortunately I’ve found that is always the case, so nothing so far has been so bad as to end up at the dump - except for components that I've inadvertently damaged beyond repair.

“that criteria can be settled in advance, with examples marching in afterwards to be judged like contestants in a beauty contest”

The question is not based on an objective reality, but how good enough it is for YOU?

It's not a question of objective (read: intersubjective) reality or how good it is for you. The obstacle to which I'm referring applies equally to the individual. It's about the process of deciding questions of taste, and when criteria are settled in advance the problems manifest -- for groups but also for individuals. Objectivity has nothing to do with the objection.

@mahgister

There is an end in acoustic because acoustic unlike a piece of gear is not a new panel, it is a room designing process made for a specific speakers/room relation ...The end of this process is programmed by acoustic principle application in some order and is finite

I guess I have come across audiophiles who are not obsessed with gear but with adjusting the acoustics - designing and then re-designing the room. Unlike you, they don’t see an "end point" as you describe it because they hear differences in how they arrange the diffusers, absorbers, etc.

They do not believe that there is a principled, objective, finite end to acoustic treatment. It is not consumerism. The measurements do not end the question for them. (They remind me that mathematicians argue, too.)

Acoustic treatment -- endless quest.

Gear -- endless question.

For these people, your consumerism argument about gear is very convincing. But it does not end their quest for perfect and ultimate acoustics.