Did your system getting better the more money you spent or more experience you gained?

There is two kind of audiophiles at the two extreme limits...

We dont have the same budget...

Those with no budget limit...

Those with a strict budget limit...

Audiophile experience ask not only  for much time to create it but in my case acoustic knowledge ...

I am on a strict buget...

Someone with no limit budget will put emphasis on the gear design and price... Generally the priciest, the better ... ( they are exception as mike lavigne dedicated room ). It is easier to buy than to experiment with a necessary  big amount of time...

For most people with a strict budget i cannot imagine a real audiophile experience without emphasis put on mechanical, electrical and acoustical controls... And you cannot afford it without experiments  if you are on a low budget ...Costlier upgrades are out of choices..

The good fortune of being without unlimited budget was that i was absolutely in the obligation to learn the essentials and experiment : Acoustics was, i discovered it ,the main factor of audiophile experience not price tag... I completely ignore that 12 years ago as most ...

Here people with an unlimited budget but a limited judgment will attack me to say that i advocate a falsehood:  that  gear design dont matter... This is false , i could bought better gear design for my speakers system if i could afford it easily, gear design quality matters  ...

But my audiophile experience became  so good with low cost speakers (modified for sure) that i feel lucky... No frustration and a S.Q. with a low cost ratio impossible to beat...if i can afford better speakers  than those i own now in a real acoustic room as i had one year ago , for sure i will improve it ...

i wrote my piece for people with low budget.... learn about electrical, mechanical and especially acoustical control... The main stopgap in audio is a lack of knowledge and a lack of acoustics experiments way more than the gear price tags ...

Personally I went with my gear because I felt like the electronics pushed the limits. The design elimates all noise and distortion by design. The Dac literally has min heat sinks between each chip to eliminate heat and distortion. The cable are on  balance all of the spectrum.  It’s detailed without being clinical or analytical. It’s built to be that way so as I learned more about what it did and I demoed the sound I went ahead and went with it at the increased price. It had synergy easily so it’s was worth the extra money and it delivers sound that I can’t wait to get home to.  You can’t randomly throw money in this hobby and get results it takes education and work. 

you are not born with a high level of system building knowledge and great judgment. it’s a process. it’s starts with a passion and hunger to have great music reproduction and a love of music.

the way it works is that (1) at the entry level you do need a minimal level of gear to be able to apply your knowledge and get a decent result. (2) but then past that threshold set up and careful system synergy becomes much more significant than big investments in gear. modest decent well put together systems are better than better gear not effectively assembled. then (3) better or really top level gear or a great room does raise the ceiling for how great things can be, but are no guarantee.

think of it as a kinda ratcheting process. where you maybe take a couple steps forward, a step back learning, another step forward, then sideways, then forward......etc. etc. as you learn and make decisions hopefully they mostly are good ones. but it’s not linear. there are mistakes if you really get after it. and if you are afraid to reach a little bit then you get stuck on a plateau and some of the passion leaves for a bit.

great set-up plus great gear is what takes you furthest. and mostly it takes years or decades to accomplish that. a lifetime process.

In my case, the issue was whenever I would upgrade a piece of hardware, it would develop a new weak link (I'd take big bites out of the upgrade pie). Fix that link and another one would pop up. But before you know it, it levels out and you have a really nice sounding system.

Both.

Good equipment costs money, but you have to end up with a sound you like and are comfortable with. That takes experience, at least enough where you can be honest with yourself.