Hiatus

Some get sucked down the rabbit hole like Alice.

Have to keep it all in context. For me it is about music, not the arms or gear race. I find that I am spending more time on small refinements and selling the stuff we do not use anymore. 
 

If you spent $500 and it sounds good to you, then stop and listen to the roses. 😉

I completely rebuilt my main system… it is now completely musical and enthralling. I listen three hours a day and have to be dragged away each day.

 

Sounds like for you it was a change in attitude, for me it was a change in the sound of my system.

I lived through the exact same experience as you but with a low cost well embedded synergetical system..

I listen now as yourself  music in ectasy and the negative aspects of sound are no more evident...

I can upgrade at a cost which will be 10 times the cost of my actual system ... I will not do it... It is unnecessary because i miss nothing so much as to feel a lack on any acoustic factors..

When you cannot stop listening the SOUND for the first time in your life this is a clear sign that all is synergetically well chosen and rightfully embedded.. ...

But the OP has a very important point : listening albums for their sound instead of their musical content and interpretation may be the starting point toward a dead end road, upgraditis ...

It is useless to upgrade BEFORE learning how to embed any system...

Articles about acoustics and electrical and mechanical embeddings are more valuable than any upgrade in general, except the necessary upgrade when there is no synergy...

Listening for sound became a moot point. Even when I achieved the sound I wanted, I thought like the song goes: “Is that all there is?”  In other words it’s a dead end.  
The enjoyment I get from music is infinite! 
 With streaming I have just about the whole catalog of Western classical music at my disposal in almost every possible version.

@raysmtb1

In general, I agree with the clothing analogy, but I think a food recipe might be more accurate, in that it allows for more precise tweaking.

With clothes you are stuck with the subject person’s size, shape and appearance and face it, some of us aren’t exactly runway candidates.

With a recipe there are more components and therefore more options that will affect the final satisfaction level. Take the soup I made last night. Basic ingredients are sausage, beans, some spices, potatoes, vegetables and chicken stock.

Change from breakfast sausage to a Tuscan pork sausage, add some cayenne and cumin and use my homemade brown chicken stock and it is heavenly.

As to the hiatus. It’s something I have never done, so I can’t comment. What I will say is that the quality of my system, while plebeian to some of our $150K members, is still at a level where I rarely analyze and listen at the same time.