Geoffkait, your question is an excellent one and I have asked myself this question many times. Apparently, my answer is as follows:
When I can close my eyes and believe I'm sitting row 8 center Severance Hall, it will stop. When I run out of money or go deaf, it will stop. When I lose my love for music, it will stop. Until then, I will keep running prudent experiments to try to get just a little closer to Severance Hall from my living room.
I have found that spending a reasonable amount of money in order to test the validity of my own preconceived notions has afforded some rather nice, and in some cases substantial, gains. Electrical engineering is not an area where metaphysical arguments should have a place. Unfortunately, there are things going on with this whole business of supplying AC and turning it into music that are beyond my understanding, though I am a pretty bright guy. There are things that the human ear can hear that can't be correlated with things that I can measure.
I am a scientist by training, but I have found that there are times when a deliberate exercise in anti-rationalism can be the fastest way "out of the box." This is not the same as a headlong plunge into irrational spending.
On the other hand, we need to be realistic. If a manufacturer, say, Cary, Pass, CJ, whoever-- could turn a $5000 amp into a $15000 amp using $300 worth of tweaks, I'm just guessing they would do so. Some of this tweaking and spending is just part of the fun(or frustration) of this hobby. It's unfortunate when people allow their natural skepticism to turn into vicious attacks or rude affronts of other's intelligence or integrity. A bit too much of that here and in Audio Asylum lately for my taste.
When I can close my eyes and believe I'm sitting row 8 center Severance Hall, it will stop. When I run out of money or go deaf, it will stop. When I lose my love for music, it will stop. Until then, I will keep running prudent experiments to try to get just a little closer to Severance Hall from my living room.
I have found that spending a reasonable amount of money in order to test the validity of my own preconceived notions has afforded some rather nice, and in some cases substantial, gains. Electrical engineering is not an area where metaphysical arguments should have a place. Unfortunately, there are things going on with this whole business of supplying AC and turning it into music that are beyond my understanding, though I am a pretty bright guy. There are things that the human ear can hear that can't be correlated with things that I can measure.
I am a scientist by training, but I have found that there are times when a deliberate exercise in anti-rationalism can be the fastest way "out of the box." This is not the same as a headlong plunge into irrational spending.
On the other hand, we need to be realistic. If a manufacturer, say, Cary, Pass, CJ, whoever-- could turn a $5000 amp into a $15000 amp using $300 worth of tweaks, I'm just guessing they would do so. Some of this tweaking and spending is just part of the fun(or frustration) of this hobby. It's unfortunate when people allow their natural skepticism to turn into vicious attacks or rude affronts of other's intelligence or integrity. A bit too much of that here and in Audio Asylum lately for my taste.