Anyone Totally Content With Their System?

I have one reference system which always sounds good and I leave alone. It was assembled in 1996 and sounded fantastic from the first note. It has been left untouched except for a new cabinet this year due to old the TV being replaced by a new Plasma screen. The system is Cary SLI 50 (30W class A vacuum tube integrated amp) with Triad System 3 speakers which include a powered woofer(sealed box time aligned 2 ways 89db @ 1 watt), Chicago speaker stands, wired with RadioShack non terminated speaker wires, Sony 608ESD cd player, stock Sony interconnect, and plugged into a cheap power strip. It cost one tenth of my main system but sounds better in some ways and is musically satisfying and exciting. I use it as a reference for my other system which I constantly futz with to see if what I did made it better or worse. I definitely agree with Sogood51's audiophile definition and that fits me.

Itball.....I share your obsession....with speakers. I've been building them for several years. My answer to your question is 80% yes and 20% no. It depends on the recording. I can do things with my speakers to adapt them to the music I enjoy, but not all the music I enjoy. And so I am constantly critial and ready to change something in the enclosure or in the crossover to make things better for a particular recording. It is rare for me to just sit back and enjoy music without second guessing my setup, but I am closer than ever before. For me speakers will always be a compromise based on the music I play, but I get the chills more often than I used to, and I can finally just sit and listen to my system.....80% of the time. So why am I shopping for power cords?

I'm there, I got there by:
Amps: Krell>Pass Labs>Manley>AES(Cary)>Odyssey>AES(Cary)
Speakers: B&W>Paradigm>Forest>GMA
CDP: Sony>Jolida>Resolution Audio>Jolida
Cables: AudioQuest>VH Audio>VirtualDynamics
Budget~$8-10k
All my selections were done in my room with my system, it is the only way I have found to have a clear conscience on my selection. In a couple of instances, I chose a new piece over an existing piece only to learn that the new piece just didn't sustain my interest like I remembered the old piece to and I returned to the old piece, my amps were one such example. The speakers are what I built it around, I believe in finding those first, then building around them, they just had that sound, that decay, that air that I like. The other great breakthrough for me was the addition of a preamp in my system vs. running my old CDP direct to my amps (with analog volume control). I'm going on two years with my amps and speakers and about a year on all other components.

it is hard to be content with a stereo system when live music is so much more satisfying. after attending a recital of acoustic performances, i have no interest in listening to any stereo system for a while.

stereo systems are a distant second best to the real thing.
consider the chain:

live performance---recording---stereo system---listener.

it is hard to be content with a stereo system when live music is so much more satisfying. after attending a recital of acoustic performances, i have no interest in listening to any stereo system for a while.

not my experience at all. I often go to a live performance and I am frustrated with both the audio and the quality of the musicians playing...a great live performance is rare local occurence compared to the quality of what you can find at the music store.