when are you done comparing IC's

How about 'borrowing' a half dozen at a time from The Cable Company which will all be well burnt in and gives you the choice of a cross section of the market at YOUR price point.
That should save loads of time and you should be able to arrive at a pretty quick choice of what you DON'T like.....!
Just an idea, and not one which I've attempted myself, but sounds good in theory :-)

What I can absolutely never stress enough is that at the end of the day the MOST influential component in anybodys system is THE ROOM.... deal with its acoustic anomalies FIRST and then you may actually hear what is truly possible with the most rudimentary of ancillary components. In fact you may realise that you have been chasing your tail with trivialities elsewhere.

Coolhand
With respect...

I'd sure guard against grabbing a handful of cables from the cable co. all at one time.

they aren't always run in well enough for a quality comparison, and with six pr. and but two weekends well, that's too much scrambling and remembering for me to appraise each adequately and as well in their best form..

Been there & done that.

2 pairs at most is how I might try now/again. One pair would most likely do though, as it is then being compared to the on hand brand, and vice versa... so there's two right there & only one set was borrowed.

As at another spot in the chain things might well be different/improved again... so even with just one other set, there are more combos to peruse.

I tend to get pretty curious and seeing 'where' becomes as much a priority as 'which'.

take notes too. About that which thrills you most. Use a simple scale too. Like 1-5... that can be adjusted too.

the knee bobbing, toe tapping, and grinning will settle things for you I'm sure, but until that happens, notes are important... honest notes!

Look at price last... not during. then pick.

Coolhand: why address the root cause when you play around with the symtoms? =)

you're 100% right imo. my room is the problem. some of the folks around here helped figure that out a while back. unfortunately it was after i had committed my remaining budget(and then some) to a new dac/transport.

temporarily tried the remedy a few weeks. new speaker locations with thin blankets over two large windows and covered as much tile as i could with area rugs. results were phenomenal!!. to do this set-up permanently...i'll need a new vertical audio rack, speaker cables, window treatments and carpet (my 4 month old az setori shotguns are 1.5 feet short!). am 100% committed to doing it once funds are available. 2009 audio budget has been destroyed so early 2010 is the soonest i can move forward.

at this point i am going to step away. will revisit the ic playground when my room gets sorted out. was hoping to find some cables i really liked to hold me over until then. in effect...i'm was trying to "fix the room" temporarily with ic's lol!. not to worry though. have already figured out it can't be done in my case. some room faults can be improved with certain ic's but "fixed" they are not.

might try the cable company advise too. would definatly go blindjim's route on only getting a couple at a time. anything more then that would confuse/overwhelm and maybe even kill me? =)

i've learned alot in this process. too bad it's all been the hard way. typical green pea.....oh well.

sounds like you hit the wall when you decided to ask this question!!...:)

yep...wall has been hit and my face is flat. i'm stepping away from the ic's with my hands up.... after i demo one last set of MIT's that is ;-)