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

Synergy is defined as compatibility ...

It cannot be defined as the "best" possible component in relation to another component...

You need acoustic room condition optimal anyway to judge a system synergy ...

For many synergy is an end of the journey because they focus on the gear,not surprizing if they realize synergy defined as the optimum it is a gost ...But the gear synergy is only a starting minimum , a starting point  for the journey ...We learn how to embed a system and it takes time only after having a minimal synergy between parts...

When we say that 2 components are synergetical we means that they do not present evident incompatibility ...

Audio is not only merely about the gear but about acoustics and about electrical and mechanical embeddings controls of these synergetical components to begins with  ....

@frankmc195 we don’t know when to quit. I think I’m at a point where I’m good. Changing one thing can screw up my entire chain and sound now!

@ddgtt +1 that saved me years and thousands. 

Kinda both, but there is no doubt that experience guided my investments and the info shared in forums like this has saved me thousands. Shouting out also To Paul at PS Audio for consistently answering a wide range of good questions.

I decided to build a couple systems about five years ago and my main rig has consistently improved since then based on good info gained over time. Building around the same Class A/B/A+B pro audio amp I upgraded main speakers, added a sub, did a complete cable swap, cleaned up the input with a WiFi streamer and adjusted input gain to the point where $5k hard cost sounds like $50k to me LOL

@calvinj

I think I’m at a point where I’m good. Changing one thing can screw up my entire chain and sound now!

That’s a very good sign. I got there at my previous residence, at least in terms of setting up the equipment I tried. I’ll never know if other components I didn’t try might have done something even better but I was having a great time with what I had. The thing was, there was a LOT of digital settings involved and I was worried about accidentally messing it up, which happened sometimes, causing me to carefully and nervously go over everything to figure out what happened. That’s the good thing about using components that just sound the way you want without any special settings required.

My setup at my new house is quite a bit different, but still has a LOT of settings I have to make sure stay put. Fortunately there is no longer a front control panel that I or a toddler nephew can mess with and inadvertently screw things up.

@mahgister

I’m with you on the crosstalk reduction. I haven’t heard BACCH, but I’ve set up the physical crosstalk barriers and had my mind blown, and now I’m using my own 3 speaker array method to deal with comb filtering caused by interaural crosstalk. This is my main area of audiophile interest now. Interaural crosstalk is the 600lb gorilla in the room to my ears. 2 speakers playing across your head without some kind of electronic or physical hardware to reduce crosstalk is a seriously compromised setup for anything other than sounds panned hard left to one speaker or the other, and I don’t think there’s any way to correct it with recording methods or mixing/mastering - unless some kind of crosstalk reduction is mixed into the recording - which means it’ll only work in very specific listening configurations. Multi-channel recordings with 5.1 or 7.1 setups bring their own headaches, although I think those could be solved with a specially designed room, but only if the people who mix the recordings properly take advantage of what’s there. I know that many feel it’s a non-issue. Hence, Sonus Faber just put out a 2 channel speaker system for $750,000. You wouldn’t put that much into a system if you thought it was inherently flawed, I wouldn’t think.