Can one ever be "done" in this hobby?

fleschler, the irony for you is that all that time and expense and you still have a long way to go. The reason I say that is because the problems with scattered laser light and the vibrating and fluttering CD can not (rpt not) be recovered by anything you do downstream. Not cables, tweaks, speakers, fuses, room treatment. The information that’s lost as soon as the laser strikes the CD is gone forever. That’s the very first thing that happens - Distortion and noise. And it has always been so. Everybody is used to by now. That’s why audiophiles deep down inside are dissatisfied with their sound, they know deep down there’s got to be more to it than this.  😛

Please, no angry emails telling me have much everyone loves their system’s sound.

Depends on how far the technology can and will go. I think 🤔 as a headphone and loud speaker user you can stay put for quite a while if everything in your soundchain has some degree of performing on an elite level. 

The audio world really shifts every 7 to 10 years in terms of huge leaps in audio tech performance and quality. 

So if it's a hobby that you enjoy, why would anyone want to be done?  Honestly, I have no desire to "be done".  It's exploration and new experiences.

I desire to be “done” because audio is a means to an end. The end is an appreciation of the music. 

I have got my system up to where, while I know it’s not likely the best, it’s at least 90% there. 

I have 5,800 LPs. It will take me years to go through all of them just on what I currently have.

After a while, like whats the point of fussing with it? Records having the wide range of engineering quality that they do, there’s enuf fussing around with each LP as it is. 

There’s a famous quote, something about repeating the same things over and over again and getting the same results. Was it Einstein? 😛