Is it ever enough?

FD,,, exactly.
 I think that contentedness can be approached externally through attempting to provide particular circumstances, which is hard to manage and often  transient, or it can be a function of internal attitude, which can evolve to be able to be more content independent of circumstances.

Perhaps a two-pronged approach gives us the best chance.

i’m at that end game point in my system building journey......and am about to retire in a year or so. so it’s asset allocation time. do i want to continue to have as much in my hifi commitment (including my separate hifi building), or do i cash in some hifi chips and switch my focus to other pass-times?

i have worked 6 days a week for almost 50 years.....hifi was my life balance i could do every day to recover. but without my work stress will hifi continue to occupy my time enough to pull it's weight in my life balance?

sure; i could still make small system changes to what i have, but it would be sideways moves to do just to keep my fires burning......and my hifi muscles loose.

check back in 12-18 months and we will see.

it might have been ’enough’. :-)

and my ’enough’ i think is plenty.

I have plenty of recordings that "suck" but the music is incredible. Most of them are just a product of their times. It is like looking at an antique. Take the trim off a stunning Philadelphia high boy and you will see the most awful dovetailing. It was viewed differently back then. 

Audio is a maze. You head down a path and run into a dead end. You turn around, take a different route and bump your nose again. Over time you learn what paths lead to a dead end and eventually find a right path. Hopefully, along the way you learn how things work and how to do manipulate the technology to your purpose. 

I started young. I got my first record player at the age of 4. My father had a great system in it's day making my own players sound like sh-t. So, I started down the path of improvement. I built my first Dynakit at the age of 13. Using a soldering iron was a necessity as I could not afford anything but kits. I had to earn the money to buy everything. Used equipment was the rule otherwise. It has been a long evolutionary process with several long periods of stasis (children are expensive.) I have always had an upgrade path in mind and I am on a roll again. Technology moves on and I am an early adopter. There is always room for improvement and I do not expect to stop any time soon. The kids are on their own and my wife and I do not have a very expensive lifestyle.  There is money to burn and I plan on burning it. 

Mike... best of luck.
Adopting an attitude embodying curiosity and interest in how things unfold is fun, isn't it?