New equipment

Volume.  Sounds simple, it's not.  I think I have it right now!! 

It can be a real roller coaster.  I love the new_____.  Well, maybe not.  Yes, I do. 

My latest itch is new crossovers for the speakers....Good thing money matters.  My UPS guy would hate me lugging those heavy pieces up the hill.

Call age but after 40 years I’ve learned a few things in this hobby, once you nail it with the sound you enjoy, then after that, it’s like cooking, you change something for a "different sound" or as I say spice and flavor to the sound. I have seen the systems sound superb the owner then gets bored and swaps out gear and loses what they had, they really start to shuffle gear in and out to get the magic back they had. This is very expensive but if you have the deep pockets to do it then do it. The Absolute Sound is the sound you enjoy, nothing more or less, and it never has what was mastered in the studio, for every cable, power cord (huge) impacts how the sound is delivered and what areas of reproduction they bring out in our systems. I have a very enjoyable system and I know it is as good as it can get for me, and the only other thing I think of now is enjoying my vast music collection. I’ve owned box speakers, electrostatic speakers, and now open baffle speakers and the open baffle really nailed what I liked about Electrostatic Speakers, but with unlimited bottom end and dynamics. So done with speakers now. The biggest thing is room acoustics and setup once you have a great system, it is cheaper by far to improve those 2 areas than any piece of gear can. TV between your speakers, racks, etc, get rid of them, imaging improves, bass traps in each corner bass improves and imaging, side wall damp them, even if it is canvas large prints, 48 X 60". Curtains if you have windows, even blinds on those windows tilting upward a bit is a good defuser and along with heavy curtains you have a good front wall area if you like me have windows on the front wall. Rooms are a huge percentage of what you hear and the balance of highs to lows.

Even though I thought I made peace with the demon, I still have to continually fight him off.

@phillyb , If you know what to do with electrostatic loudspeakers you can get all the volume and dynamic you could ever wish for with much lower distortion within the audio band. If they are designed as dipolar line sources you can minimize room interaction to a level impossible with any other type of loudspeaker. 

Thoughtful evaluation is the path to a state of the art system. You identify the problems, find and implement  the solutions. The problem most people have is that they are not sure what the target is so they are out to sea without a compass. Thiis is why listening to an assortment of State of the art systems or frequenting live acoustic performances is so important. Sitting three or four rows away from a string quartet is an amazing experience. If you want to know what imaging should be like there you have it. Violins are difficult to reproduce without sibilance. Is there any at a live performance? If not then there should not be any at home either. Sitting a few rows away from a double bass and drums at a jazz performance will tell you what bass should sound and feel like. They should sound exactly the same at home.

Anybody who tells you that any of this can not be done is a defeatist. Good hunting to all of you!

@phillyb  and the elephant in the audiophile room, is that if you don't fix the room, and spend real dollars there, the sound you will get will plateau. No amount of money, no fancy cables, no power conditiondf, no tubes in your DAC, no new cartridge, nothing will get your past a certain SQ.