One must spend years listening to the equipment, until they get it right; I spent time listening to "speaker wire" and then I went from there to "interconnects", next SS amps as opposed to tube.
I decided at the beginning that I wanted a speaker that reproduced whatever it was fed without any sound of it's own; that meant a custom speaker with a crossover designed by a "crossover engineer", which I have to this day.
Last but not least has been "room treatment"; now I have the "holographic sound" that I sought from the beginning, now I can listen to music.