Weak Link in chain as I upgrade from mid-fi?

Focus on the room first. What can you do to improve your room acoustics.

As you go up the food chain in audio you will find the room play a bigger role than it does with low/mid-fi gear. Just something to think about.

@zander024 I applaud you on recognizing the journey.  Enjoy it.

I concur on starting with improving your speakers and make it a significant upgrade.  I like Sonus faber and have owned the Sonetto Vs and really enjoyed them.  I also upgraded to the Olympica Nova Vs and it was a significant improvement.

Why do I say upgrade the speakers first?  You have a complete system - if you start with your speakers you'll get an upgrade now and you'll be able to appreciate upgrade of your source (DAC/Streamer) next and then amplification.

Good luck on your journey!

Buy a good dedicated dac like the Denafrips terminator2  night and day better 

sound , even witha newer computer with SS drives, the source is where your system makes or breaks the audio signal your system has very low quality digital 

this upgrade you can guarantee 150% !!

+1 on both @drbond ​​​​@ghdprentice 

Your system looks balanced. You probably need to change almost everything to get a huge improvement. Doing this a step at a time is easier and spreads the cost but you may have to aim for components 2x the price of your current ones. My biggest improvement was changing the amp so you could let the Arcam go. Or change the DAC first and then the amp and speakers after that. Or some other order.

Thanks much everyone for the feedback. Definitely pairing amp upgrade with whatever speaker upgrade (which I HOPE would be Olympica Nova 3 but maybe next would be either sonetto V or ON 1), and DAC is something I wrote off as like...’sure, maybe...eventually’ before this thread.

I want to try Yggdrasil and various Denafrips (Venus 2/ Terminator 2...maybe Pontus 2?) but the lack of ability to hear either of those in a shop/nearby makes it scary to clunk that much down without ability to trial. The Denafrips T2, and T+ get SUCH love Id love to eventually have one but in service of being able to hear what’s at my local shops, any thoughts on these brands/models as ’other’ high end ones? I know the qutest is a crowdpleaser but also maybe not endgame for something like Olympica novas? I can test it at least with my sonettos. I’ve also heard Ayre anything is really great, and their amps work well with Sonus Faber...which is promising as a prospect to have good synergy down the line when I up my amp. Luxman ive heard from my shop (that sells them so...grain of salt?) has great dacs, and if I ended up with Luxman amp that could also be synergy.

Luxman Da-250
Chord Qutest
Ayre QX-8
Ayre Codex
Moon 280D

Not that I can hear Yggdrasil in a shop, but how is that one as a "great" dac. I don't need like...DCS Lina full stack for 30k...but is it 'somewhat close-ish' to idk..Dena Venus II? Obviously one is chip another is R2R but the Schiit I see now has some upgrade options to give it a different balance in sound.

As a (characteristically for me) long aside, Story time:
Coming from headphone world one of the first big you tubers I watched was Zeos...who was the person that turned me onto the Hivi 3.1 speaker kit. Man did I LABOR over making those look as luxury as possible. Automotive glossy finish with Porsche flake black paint, painstakingly bevelled corners, upgraded caps in the x-over, and I was ’blown away’...for a few days.

Something happened after about a week. Nothing new occurring so much as I knew I had to be honest with myself about a deep, dark truth... I could practically pinpoint frequencies moving from driver to driver...was so disappointing to admit to myself that no, these are not satisfactory. The crossovers were complete garbage, the synergy of drivers was bleh, the aesthetics of the speaker front was so blunt and utilitarian compared to my poorly matched finish I poured over.All this to say it was a money pit (relatively, for that kit haha) at the beginning of this loudspeaker journey...BUT in retrospect it Tought me SO much:

- 3 ways are complex and you’d better get one with an artfully done crossover.
- The speed of ribbons sound nice but quality soft dome tweeter solutions have all the detail I could ever want.
- Forward presentation can be exhausting (this obviously can exist with headphones but it feels like a different kind of thing in a way to me)
- Care about every point in the chain, ESPECIALLY terminations and connections in some cases.
- While it hurt to sink so much money into quality ’finishing’ materials for those speakers, forcing myself to really try to love them really taught me to love the craft and taste great companies put into theirs.

Excited to keep going and Thanks for the engagement and advice all!