If you had to start all over again in this day and age

stereo5. Funny you say that. I used to sell audio equipment for years and never liked Mc stuff. I had it in the stores simply because many people loved their sound. I always thought Mark Levinson was hyped up stuff as well.

Now, house sounds "change". It did for ARC and I should probably listen to a McIntosh 2275 of late

My system has the best of the best including MAGICO speakers i do not have to second guess anything in my system.

OP,
I can identify in some ways with leery to digital streaming, because one year ago I was there, albeit for different reasons.

I’m into a lot of different things but I guess as I look back I have about five primary hobbies that recurringly dominate segments of my life. Usually one or two are obsessively active and the other three are sidelined but will re-emerge eventually, typically in near obsessive fashion until I lose interest and cycle to the next...

Music and hifi is one of the five, but as I mentioned was kinda dormant for most of last 18-20 yrs since my last big purchase of 2 ch and HT at that time.

Today, music/Hifi is dominating my attention span for the last year since I upgraded, like it hasn’t since I was a kid.

I started thinking about why that was, and concluded that for me it is all about quote-unquote unlimited access to music and variety.
Why do I say that? The only other time I was this enthralled in music and gear was way back in the 80s as a kid. Columbia House and the other one (forget name now - started with B I think) offering 12 albums for a penny! Wow!

All of a sudden, not only did I have 25 new albums which exponentially broadened my music view, but concurrently so did all of my friends, so between us it was virtually unlimited music in our world as we swapped and traded, and it led to massive (its all relative) investments in gear for home and eventually car, all because of the music awakening that wouldn’t otherwise have been possible.

Fast forward 15 years to having some money and buying first hi-end system in 2000 and playing the cds I had and it was good, but it died out fairly soon to be replaced by the other hobbies vying for my attention. I never got into the Napster file sharing and detest headphones/buds so never owned an iPod.

Well to wrap up a story that’s already too long, enter digital hi quality streaming and its 1985 all over again for me with limitless access to any and seemingly all music, and I’ve dropped the other hobbies for last year and plowing all of my $ into getting three separate systems up so I always have access to it.

I didn’t have the huge tranche of LPs or CDs or even digital download files so streaming was an easy decision for me a year ago, and it has been awesome.

Not too long at all Kren. I know noting of streaming. Don't know what to buy or where to start. Speaking of hobbies, one of mine was photography. It took me 30 years to get into digital. One trip to Alaska and 700 shots later, I never looked back.
I'm hoping streaming would be kind of the same thing.
Unfortunately, I am not a "music listener". I am a component listener which is way bad. It was different when I could listen to just about anything I wanted and took stuff home from the stores but it's where I picked up this bad habit of listening to "equipment". Hence my trepidation getting into streaming. 

Nearly 40yrs an audiophile and I wouldn't change a thing with the budget I've had over the years. I ha e what I think sounds best for my taste, room, music, and the money. I think a better question would be: if cost was no object what would you change (room stays same)?