How do you know what you're missing?

1) There's an old saying: "You never know until you try."
2) Start small and then work your way up, if you're so inclined. In times like this, we need something to keep ourselves occupied and motivated, so why not music and audio.
3) Enjoy the journey; but, also treat the process scientifically and then analyze the results accordingly.

As you start changing equipment or adding tweaks, one of my tricks is to listen to music in the car first, because there's a different kind of focus and enjoyment involved. Then I listen to it again on my audio system with some additional focus on the details or differences that I perceive from whatever new changes that I've made to my system.

End of the day, it's simply what sounds good to you.

Stay off forums, and enjoy your music. Audiophoolery is just another hobby.

millercarbon

Everything in the following system has been bought based on reading reviews and comments ... the Moabs were bought exactly the way you seem to be so convinced cannot work. Clearly either I know something very, very important- or I’m the luckiest audiophile on the planet. Take your pick.

A third possibility may be the most likely: Confirmation Bias.

In any pursuit, not just hifi, you have to have a clear vision of the goal or call it the target before you can hit it.

If you are asking the question it sounds like you don’t know what the target is in which case one is shooting blindly.


So how to identify the target? Easy, you listen to a lot of things until you can identify “That sound” you want to hear. Both live music and recordings on good quality “reference systems” help. The more you listen the more your brain becomes trained to recognize that good sound when you hear it.


Then the question becomes how to get it in your room? That’s the other hard part.

But the key is to start with fundamentals. Speakers that will work well in your room, placing them properly for best sound, acquiring an amp capable of not just playing them but driving them to their max, a good quality preamp that matches output impedance well to the amp, and of course a good quality source (setting up a phono rig is a whole story in itself much harder than finding a good quality DAC for streaming).


Then from there you might find value in tweaking wires, cleaning up the power, shielding from external sources of noise, etc. YMMV here as well and the differences can range from distinct to none depending.


So bottom line is it takes time and effort to get things right. Hence the hobby.


There are shortcuts to take like buying integrated gear rather than doing it all yourself. For example modern integrated amps may provide a very good quality integrated streaming package these days. Then all you have to worry about is acquiring those right speakers and getting those set up well.



Fun 💰Fun ⏳ Fun!!

good to see miller back to his old form  :)