Satisfaction Guarenteed?

Hi Jmora; I don't think most audiophiles are seeking "intellectual or spiritual satisfaction". Those are too grandiose goals, IMO-- at least for most? To me it's just a highly enjoyable hobby, and there's nothing particularily noble about it. I have two audiophile friends who are polar opposites when it comes to their approaches to audio. One put a very good system together quite a few years ago, and he seldom makes changes, ie he's really in it for enjoyment of the music-- classical, opera, and jazz-- equipment to him is secondary. The other guy is an upfront obsessive and is constantly buying, selling, and trading equipment-- never satisfied, yet he refuses to spend money on acoustic treatments, vibration control, AC clean-up etc. To him it's almost purely an equipment "chase", and he only occasionally enjoys the music. But I guess that's what HE likes. As for me, I'm somewhere in between these two extremes. I can be an equipment junkie, and like to try out new "stuff", but having admitted that, the equipment or tweak has to serve the music for me to be satisfied. At age 57, my philosophy is to "never go backwards" regarding music quality. And right now I'm very satisfied with my system, but as I still like to try new components and tweaks, I don't mind "going sideways" occasionally, ie I want to try a good tube amp. And for sure, I want to end up with Vandersteen 5 speakers. So, to pull all this drival together, I am satisfied with what I think is a balanced approach to this hobby-- it suits my temperment and is enjoyable. BTW, all these approaches can be done at radically different budget levels. So the approach each of us takes in an attempt to reach audio wonderfulness(unattainable)comes down to personality, character, temperment-- intensely personal "stuff", IMHO. Cheers. Craig.

Hi Jmora; In my above post, I kind of reduced high end audio to just a fun hobby, but on thinking about it some more, I do occasionally have "magic musical moments"-- where EVERYTHING seems to come together musically, and then, yes, some sort of transcendance takes place. I think it's those times that make it all worthwhile. I strongly suspect that many others have these magic moments too; although they may be called something else? Interesting and thought provoking question. Cheers again. Craig