Visit to Magnolia Proves Interesting

I had a good 2 hours of alone time (wife took the kid to the pool) and ran over to Magnolia.  Let me just note that in the 2 decades that I've been visiting high end audio stores, I've not been too keen on listening at big box stores because the seem to be pushing brands that face serious competition elsewhere. 

I listened to B&W 804s, Martin Logan electrostatics, and Sonus Faber Olympica IIIs through an McIntosh MC452.

Here are my takeaways:

1.  The Sonus Faber sounded better than the B&W 804s through the Mac.  The Sonus Fabers had more of a holographic picture, better bass, and did not try to dissect the music into little pieces for me to put back together, yet I could hear the individual parts well if I wanted to.  The B&Ws were impressive, but sounded a bit clinical in my book. 

2.  Nothing I was hearing by either loudspeaker felt like much of an improvement over what I have--PSB Imagine T2s, running through either a Roksan Radius (Ortofon 2m Black) or Tidal pushed through my Creek Evolution 100A's DAC or through my Bluesound's DAC.   

Now if I were in the market for new stuff (who kind of isn't even when we say we're not), I wouldn't necessarily run to Magnolia.  I happened to be close and it was convenient.  I would, however, potentially consider Mac, B&W and Sonus Faber as possible upgrade paths.  

Well, I left feeling like my Creek integrated and PSB Imagine T2s are just splendid--they compete so nicely with the near $10k Mac and $8K B&Ws and $13k Sonus Fabers.  

That made me feel pretty good.  I am now convinced that my best short term upgrade path--as someone on Audiogon said to me--is to get a better phono preamp than my Creek Sequel.  

It seems, however, that for digital playback I may have reached a pretty good plateau.  The law of diminishing returns is quite real for me right now.  

I'm thinking that Creek, PSB, Roksan and Bluesound--oh wait, don't forget Ortofon--all deserve business because they make superb products for the price...not that they are cheap. 

I'm still thinking about my next upgrade path.  And, I'm ever-so-curious to see what the PSBs would sound like with gobs more power.  All of this said, I'm really in a good spot to just enjoy the music and keep collecting vinyl. 

I welcome any thoughts you all may have.  Thanks in advance to such a wonderful community!