FWIW, I suggest you spend the next several weeks (or months) taking in as much live music as your schedule permits.
Let me clarify. As a performing and studio musician, I have always found this a great remedy to all sorts of musical pathologies - unhappiness with the current state of my system, stale creative juices, dead ears from protracted recording sessions, fatigue from prolonged mixdowns, etc.
Getting reacquainted with live music washes all those things out, acqaints me again with the timbre of live instruments, reminds me that live sound systems are often lacking, and that the fire and passion and opportunity for self-expression in music is why I'm doing this in the first place. Helps take my focus off that tubed phono stage I can't afford. And those monoblocks that will surely sound better than what I've got. And that Teres turntable that Tom has been raving about.
Might I suggest you take your wife with you. This would present the added benefits of having more time with your spouse, demonstrating that it's the fidelity of the art, not the accumulation of equipment that you are pursuing (and that's the story you should stick with), further refine your wife's ear, and maybe even soften her up to the idea of that next big purchase. Or not.
YMMV,
Tim
Let me clarify. As a performing and studio musician, I have always found this a great remedy to all sorts of musical pathologies - unhappiness with the current state of my system, stale creative juices, dead ears from protracted recording sessions, fatigue from prolonged mixdowns, etc.
Getting reacquainted with live music washes all those things out, acqaints me again with the timbre of live instruments, reminds me that live sound systems are often lacking, and that the fire and passion and opportunity for self-expression in music is why I'm doing this in the first place. Helps take my focus off that tubed phono stage I can't afford. And those monoblocks that will surely sound better than what I've got. And that Teres turntable that Tom has been raving about.
Might I suggest you take your wife with you. This would present the added benefits of having more time with your spouse, demonstrating that it's the fidelity of the art, not the accumulation of equipment that you are pursuing (and that's the story you should stick with), further refine your wife's ear, and maybe even soften her up to the idea of that next big purchase. Or not.
YMMV,
Tim