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Are You Satisfied?

Consider this a poll. How many of you are actually happy with their existing system and have no plans on upgrading? This thread seems to go "against the grain" of most of the threads regarding upgrading, future upgrades, plans to upgrade, another upgrade, etc.

Are there any of you out there who have actually stopped the upgrading and now just spend their time listening? Not that I feel that upgrading isn't a fun part of the hobby. But, I think it's more a question of, have you finally reached a point where you see no reason to upgrade.

I recently upgraded my complete 2 channel system. This is the first time I have upgraded since about 1985. It took about six months of reading, evaluating and ultimately listening, to approximately a dozen seperate pieces of equipment before making my final purchase.

I could not be any happier. Based on my past performance, I will probably own this equipment for another 15 or so years.

Are there others of you out there that are satisfied enough with you system that you see no reason to upgrade or am I to be considered the "black sheep" or not the "norm"?
128x128buscis2
nrchy's avatar
nrchy
2,124 posts
 
This is difficult to answer since I am very happy with my system now, but I still plan to upgrade.
I don't think I have anything right now that is not GOOD, but all of it could be better. I don't have any pressing urge to replace any particular piece but I still scan the ads.
Perfection in this hobby is not obtainable. The most important componant in musical satisfaction is still the imagination. How does one upgrade their brain???
Since people are reading and playing here, they're probably already too far gone for that upgrade. It's a slippery slope we climb with that 150lb amp on our backs!
paulwp
585 posts
 
If you have tubes in your system, can you ever be satisfied? First off, they start wearing out immediately and you always have to worry about when do they need replacing. Secondly, there are so many different flavors of NOS tubes, you can never be sure that you have the right ones. I'd be completely satisfied with my main system if I weren't using a tube preamp. I need to keep it there because it has a headphone jack, but maybe I'd be better off with a solid state and a separate headphone amp.

Other than that, though, speakers, amp and cdp are staying there until they stop working.
buscis2's avatar
buscis2 OP
468 posts
 
Paul, you make an important point. When considering my last upgrade, I was seriously considering tubes. There really is nothing quite like that sound. But you're right. With tubes, you must allocate time and funds for maintaining the "tube sound". I was fortunate to find an amp that had an "SET like" sound with the dependability of solid state.

But, it's still not tubes.
mezmo
516 posts
 
Paul, I think you hit a sizable portion of my own mania right on the head. I own two tubed preamps and a tubed CD player and, although I love the sound, I always seem to be second guessing them one way or another. I switched out the CD player and just bought a solid state preamp. Although I expect to keep at least one of the tubed pre's, if the solid state can keep up I expect it will find a more permanent place in the system. Satisfaction may escape me, but the interminable need to fuss with things that is only exasturbated by running tubes is something I could definitely live without.
tfl303's avatar
tfl303
83 posts
 
After 12 years and 4 major systems i can finally sit back listen to music not wondering if something needs to be improved upon just added audio note dac 3.1x balanced and audio note M6 pre-amp and can honestly say i am satisfied not to say that @ audionotes MSRP i better be. happy listening
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