What Makes your System Special?

Careful auditioning and selection of gear, so system has been built to the type of sound I prefer, allowing me to listen to high quality music reproduction for hours on end.
Desire to change anything? Only to exchange tubed gear for solid state (to reduce maintenance effort, cost of new tubes, reduce warm-up time with the ability to keep the system on 24x7 so I could listen at a moment's notice) without spending loads of cash and without losing any sound quality. But I think this is not possible. So no.

Properly tuned dedicated room and tri-amping.  All ARC gear doesn't hurt either...

Regards,
barts

It gives me love. 

That’s easy. Tubes all around for a true holographic soundstage. Amp- Mullard EL34 tubes. Preamp and phonostage 12AX7, 12AU7.

I’ve had a number of systems over the years: at least 3 different 2-channel setups in 1st house; casual 2-channel system in TV viewing area of this 2nd house; and a series of ever-changing gear in home office which has a complicated desktop/nearfield system (on 5th or 6th set of powered monitors/or speakers here).

In all that time, I had 2 systems that really nailed the heart of the music: big Vandersteen 4s in 1st house (tube amp on mids/upper & SS on subs); and the vintage but so good sounding KEF 103.2s on the desktop now. They both bring out heart & soul of music, all the different genres I listen to.

I never expected the KEFs would so easily dethrone my really excellent previous fave, the ATC SCM12 Pro passive monitors. But the KEFs locked in from day-1. I shouldn’t be surprised. I heard these ~35 year old 2-ways back in the late ’80s (my college roommate was given a pair when he graduated med school). And I had heard the very impressive, musically satisfying larger KEFs in audio salons back then.

In my experience, it’s a happy accident when one stumbles over a system that just locks in with music and satisfies the listener...