Good old days

@rvpiano ...relocating myself in the listening space, so that imaging is not a factor, may help considerably.

It’s interesting you mention this.

A tube amp buddy who geeked out for decades on several different designs of tube amps and large hoards of tube collections, has a saying an old mentor told him once "at the end of the day, it’s just your stereo".

Sometimes I do get a kick out of SG’s videos. The simpleton videos he does once in a while can be refreshing too. One video he sort of came out and said, forget all of the fancy room formulas, "try sitting closer, or spread your speakers out, just try different things". And, everyone’s room is different anyhow. Easy, low cost, fun. Try the simple stuff first. I'm going back to this mindset myself now. 

As long as we don’t take it too seriously, should be just fine.

Use some of the discipline you mustered when getting your Masters and PhD and train your mind to enjoy the music and the sound.  Music can sound truly beautiful and it can also just be beautiful, but you already know that.

Good luck.

@ebm Pack it in ASAP.

Reminder to my future self - when I get to a point of four word unhelpful forum replies, this will be my signal to stop monitoring this site and bail out for sure. 😆

To be sure, there’s absolutely nothing better than when music and sound come together to produce a wondrous effect.

**** relocating myself in the listening space, so that imaging is not a factor, may help considerably. ****

If one gets to the point where one is ready to go back to listening to music on a simple radio, then why not simply think of your rig as a great super high quality radio. Screw imaging and listen for musical expression, tonality, rhythmic nuance and interplay…. music. It will all still be there, but without the distraction of the expectation of “depth”, “perfect channel balance”, “image stability”, etc.