Are You Satisfied?

My latest upgrade was getting a STAX SRM1/SR5 headphone combination and now I was just thinking to downgrade speakers and amps but it's been already too much DIY effort took place towards the amps to modify; so I'll just simply stay where I am. Not realy I can hold-on listening in headphones for three hours -- gotta switch to speakers and amp that arn't bad at all but not as good as STAX for sure.

I did also many upgrades for instance from re-issues to original versions: Let it even sound worse than some cool re-issues but I'm more as a collector in that case than an audiophile; from bad condition vinyls to a good condition vinyls(why bother cleansing or getting from $hit gold with all the expencive chemical tweaks?); sold one bundle of CDs to change for another bundle and so-on and so-fourth.

BTW, I spotted on some labels a good jump towards quality on red-book CDs within the past couple of years and some of them realy can argue with vinyls and SACDs. Some of the small new labels(yeah underground ones that I ussually hang on to) print out excellent pressings and my mostly analogue music collection getting some digital increase as well.

I think you hit on the real limiting factor in this hobby - time. I have a nice set up, and it sounds pretty good, but it's getting harder and harder to spend time with it.

First problem is competing activities such as work, kids, and church. The second problem is that what time I have left is fragmented.

To have a good listening session I need a minimum of 3 contiguous hours. That gives the amps time to come up to operating temperature (can't afford to run them 24x7), and allows for at least a couple of albums before quitting. It's not worth firing up the system for less than this.

On a weekend I might get 6 or more free hours, but they are rarely contiguous or even close to contiguous.

Logistically the best time to listen is late at night after the kids go to bed, but by then I'm exhausted. There's nothing worse than to have the system sounding great, but to find yourself picking up a CD case and looking to see when it's going to be over so you can go to bed.

So who's got the magic tweak for our schedules?

I don't think that upgrading and the enjoyment of music are necessarily mutually exclusive. While happy to listen to my system as is, I can always think of ways it might be improved. Then again, I don't lose sleep or satisfaction from listening to music while pining for upgrades. When one cannot enjoy what they have presently based on the notion of what could be, that is a sad situation.

I'm sticking with what I have for the time being. I always keep my gear for a pretty long time. I make some small upgrades and tweaks here and there, but I usually stay with my gear for several years.