@thoft as your comment above is aligned with my recent comments of perhaps finally hearing the reality of coherence for the first time in 20 years of Thiel ownership, I'll of course throw in my 2 cents worth with a long essay :-|
I've been going to the big audio shows annually (Montreal in recent years), auditioning in the better brick-and-mortar stores to assess the latest and greatest at all price points and design approaches. All components, but ultimately the speakers used are the 'gatekeepers.'
After all these years I can recognize great sound, not-so-great sound, and a very 'different' sound. And hear the best soundstaging and clarity, primarily, that exceed what I'm used to at home. But every time I return home with a weekend of high-end audio fresh in my head, there's a certain 'rightness' to the sound in my room that more than makes up for the improved specific attributes of various systems I heard at shows or showrooms. I can focus on the attributes my rig doesn't do as well as the uber-systems, but that doesn't alter the listening satisfaction.
This does prevent major upgrade fever, and also makes it very clear when I do make a tweak for the better. Some of this is long-term familiarity with my electronics and room acoustic, but from recent posts, I think a lot has to do with my 2.4s presenting my audio signals out of the power amp more realistically than the mostly non-coherent speakers I'd been auditioning. IOW I'm not missing the coherence when listening to other speakers, but relaxing back into it when I return to coherence.
But this seems a long-term thing. I don't recall the Thiel or Vandersteen or Zu rooms sounding 'relaxed' or even that great, but I also don't hear this coherence 'difference' when comparing speakers back and forth.
