How does one get off the merry-go-round?

configuring a stereo system is hardly analogous to a merry-go-=round.

i suspect that one means going around in circles and ending where you started.

i doubt that once one embarks on a "spree" of replacing components, one does not recreate the sound that one began with.

as far as not being satisfied with the sound one is listening to. that does not surprise me, especially if one has a criterion that one uses to evaluate a stereo system, and never satisfies that criterion, while recognizing that components are not perfect.

a better analogy would be that of an artist trying to create a shade of a color, which takes a long time to achieve, or to create a color, by mixing several colors, which also takes a long time to achieve.

what satisfies a listener is very subjective and if your standards have not yet been meet, you do what you think will attain your goal.

i suspect that the chase is more fun than the conquest, so there is a certain pleasure, for some people, buying a component and having no idea how it will affect the sound of a stereo system--trial and error.

Stopping is one thing... staying stopped is a whole other rabbit hole.

Staying on any ‘treadmill’ speaks of or hints to, deeper issues. OCD. ADD. ADHD. Or just good old ‘ego’.

Or some combination of them all, in varying degrees.

Pretty much, it’s all about priorities and perspective, if any other deeper seated conditions can be controled… then one can simply see things as they are… for once..

It’s also about digging what you got more than what you don’t got too. or being happy with your current state of affairs, and normally? That occurs with a change in perspective.

I had one not long ago. Fairly dramatic series of events. it put things into a better perspective for me.

So I was forced to take a little detour from foraging materials to make bricks and moarter and further the erection of my audio arrangements.

I’m in the state of ‘down but not out’, yet I’ve no concerns, worries, or even designs on any future stereo assemblies. Apart from I’m going to revisit one I made some years ago but with newer amps and speakers… sometime. Maybe.

Safety and security for myself, and if a family, for them, must take precedence over some hobby or pleasurable resource.

If you ever stop to really give this past time a close objective once over, and one’s self in the same fashion, you might see what the other 80% of the world sees.

Now this following bit is Audiophile heresy, but I feel there’s a good argument in there somewhere for it… possibly.

“Having nice sounding music is a good thing. Be OK with that.” It’s not terribly expensive to acquire and maintain good to very good levels of audio recreation in the home.”

…..but if we insist on chasing the Dragon…. Ferreting out the 10%, 5%, 3% or just plain different increases in performance and damn the exponentially escalating subsidies required to do so, or as well incessantly regale ourselves with dreams and schemes on all the what ifs surrounding this undertaking, we can find ourselves ever in pursuit of that which we always had to begin with…. True happiness.

We had it all along… just like Dorothy. Of course were I Dorothy and Glenda laid that on me after all those trials and tribulations, I’d have socked Glenda in the nose!! You mean I could have gone home right after I remarkably emerged from a house which had fallen out of the clouds without a scratch, and assassinated an evil Witch, made new friends, had a little dance party, met the Mayor, Coroner, and received several gifts, I could have gone home right then and you did not tell me?

Happiness is always ours. Our trouble only begins when we believe it lays outside ourselves, rather than within.

…..but if we insist on chasing the Dragon…. Ferreting out the 10%, 5%, 3% or just plain different increases in performance and damn the exponentially escalating subsidies required to do so, or as well incessantly regale ourselves with dreams and schemes on all the what ifs surrounding this undertaking, we can find ourselves ever in pursuit of that which we always had to begin with….

Thanks Blindjim. I could have used those words of wisdom ten years ago.
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All too often, hi-end audio over complicates things to justify a higher price tag, no other reason.
As for paying $4,000 to get from 98% to 99%......well some people just don't know when it's time to quit IMHO.

Well I for one am a music lover, and because of the jacked-up "ATTITUDES" of some of the people that I have met I do not refer to myself as an AUDIOPHILE. I love music, music of all genres. I remember the swell in my chest as I sat in the Fox Theater with my third grade class as we viewed the original release of "The Sound Of Music". I can still feel it 47 years later. I fell in love with Julie Andrews then.I love music, that is why I am upgrading my system with as much enthusiasm as when I started 40 yeares ago. I think some people are let down after a while because they take this hobby as a means to one-up somebody else: "My system is better/more expensive than yours," and other such nonesense. I don't have a problem with some bragging rights, I mean I am extremely proud of my system's capabilities, but geesh... . I love music, I love the sound of music... and the movie is the bomb also! I think I'll stay on a while longer.