How good can it get, really? - my stereo sounds amazing!


I really love my stereo currently. I keep thinking I should be looking for the next piece to upgrade - phono stage, stereo subs, etc., but honestly not sure what to change or why I’d potentially spend more money to achieve a result that’s lesser or equal to my current sound quality. I sorta feel clueless as to how to proceed without screwing up what I have. I know it can get better but honestly I’m at a place when I just don’t know how it can. Hmmmmm.... not a bad problem I guess. Open to suggestions for sure. Thx.
paulgardner
Why mess with a good thing?  If you are satisfied with what you have, why go looking for improvements? It isn't the equipment that you have. It's what your ears hear and whether you are satisfied with it or not. There IS no 'one size fits all". 
Recently, I faced the same dilemma.  I have a very good system. However, it is in my nature to always seek "better", even though by now I have taken mine beyond what most people on this forum have proposed as modest to major potential improvements to the original poster's system.   For example, the concrete floor of my AV room has been sawed to be physically separated from the rest of my house, then covered with acoustical matting and finally with carpeting; my walls and ceiling are of multilayer sheet rock; acoustical paneling was placed on the walls wherever necessary to minimize undesired reflections; and the room/system itself has been tuned via Dirac Live.  Not surprisingly, I have continuously upgraded my equipment (including power conditioning and cabling) for the past 15 years.

Increasingly, I have become aware that (i) the law of diminishing returns is a fact and (ii) the more complex one's audio system, the more interrelated -- and therefore sensitive to even what would seem to be a very modest adjustment -- is its performance, giving rise to the prospect of unintended consequences.  My final education, if I can call it that, came last month when I supposedly upgraded a power cord for the Ethernet switch in my system.  The result of this was a clearly demonstrable, and significant, degradation of the magnificent sound I had been enjoying. 

From this experience, I now am trying to listen exclusively to the music playing -- both to its content and how it sounds and to stop trying to analyze whether the reproduction is sufficiently "life-like".  This has been hard for me to do, and yet I intellectually recognize that, given my 73 year old ears, my system is already as good as I can hear.  
Damn that sounds you have an incredible set up! I doubt I’ll ever take things that far but good for you! That’s awesome. I love people who take things to the extreme. As I’ve stated I do love how my stereo sounds and I’m not really chasing a “live” performance sound, I just want it to sounds great! I feel I’m pretty good at enjoying the music and subjectively analyzing the sound quality at the same time. The sweet spot is when it sounds so damn good you forget to analyze and just enjoy. 
Keep an open mind. "EVERYTHING"- affects a systems sound! 
Don't get hung up on ANY "Specs"!
Take the time and put the work in to hear, "What (IS) possible".
 As in going to "AXPONA", and other trade shows. And do NOT be that person that is- "Just Looking", at the gear. Listen to it. Ask questions...
 Eventually you are going to find a set-up, OR several, that simply, "Blows You Away"!
 Find out why. Talk to the builders. And go from there.
For anyone interested in an explanation regarding why power cables make an audible difference, please read https://www.gcaudio.com/tips-tricks/why-power-cables-make-a-difference. Granted, the source of the information is from the founder of Shunyata Research (which is a manufacturer of power cables) so it should be taken with a grain (shaker?) of salt. However, the logic is sound and I have heard the difference myself. I too was once skeptical, but I am not anymore.

The derisive argument often given (see the earlier post by nc03854) is that since the electricity has already traveled 500 miles through all sorts of nasty wire, replacing the last 3 feet with something better cannot possible fix the damage already done. The flaw in that argument is that from the AMPLIFIER's perspective the power cord is the FIRST 3 feet, not the LAST. The alternating current does not flow (like water) from the power company into your amplifier. It oscillates with the current entering and leaving your amplifier via the power cord. The power cord is basically an EXTENSION of the amplifier's transformer which can eliminate EMI/RFI before it enters the amplifier's transformer.