What are the odds......


....of making a really good sounding system better?

If it is really good odds are it is very hard to make better.

If it gets better all the time chances are it may not have been very good to start with.

Different is not always better although better is a very subjective thing. Is it even possible to quantify “the best” or even “better”? Music is a complex beast.


When is good good enough? YMMV. 

Back to listening now. I am thankful for what I got.
128x128mapman
I thought I'd reached the limit of what I could get out of mine. Then I tried a set of $35 springs under the turntable. Never saw it coming.
"...I thought I'd reached the limit of what I could get out of mine. Then I tried a set of $35 springs under the turntable. Never saw it coming..."

I think that is what makes an audiophile, the willingness to try new things and make changes to improve your system. You don't know what changes will do until you try. they can often be dead ends but even then you have learned something.
It is very easy to improve what is already good. But at some point, where you are very high, it does become more difficult. In the end it is the recording and the room. 
How to improve the source if you have Continuum table, as an example ?
Well, good master tape dubs, of course, and real good R2R deck.
i have a lot of equipment (several pairs of speakers and the ancillaries to drive them well) - i find i enjoy a variety in presentation, so sometimes i swap them in and out over periods of time ... harbeths have a lovely tone, warmth and thickness that is very comforting... proacs have a precision and clarity and spotlit sharpness that makes the music more exciting, quad esl’s have a purity and hear-thru quality that is very appealing very refined ... and so on... the new spatials have bass slam and openness that is very appealing, especially after listening to the quad esl’s after a while!

each set of components needs optimization, in terms of placement, room interaction, equipment, cables, what have you

hard to say which is better... all very good just different presentations with different strengths and weakness that are highlighted in different types of listening and musical genres