I lately wonder why I’m an Audiophile.

With the endless music availability through streaming, there’s no shortage of well recorded music. Good stuff. 

Allow me to use Zen Buddhist notion to describe three stages of perception or understanding.

At first, seeing a mountain is just seeing a mountain; seeing water is just seeing water.
Later, seeing a mountain is no longer seeing a mountain; seeing water is no longer seeing water.
In the end, seeing a mountain is once again a mountain; seeing water is once again water

I think you are in the second stage and, depending on the individual, it may take you another year, three years, or even ten years to reach the final stage - or perhaps never. 

Climb every mountain……

That sounds good.

On average my upgrade cycles are about seven years apart. In between I enjoy the music. Often being struck and / or getting chills from how incredible great the sound / music is on a daily or at least weakly basis. I can’t tell you how many times after a listening session going up to talk to my partner and exclaiming how incredible my system sounds... This has been going on for four years now, since my last upgrade..  

If you a not finding your system incredibly engaging... so it is  difficult to turn off and go do something else. You may still have work to do. It’s easy to put a system together that sounds very good.... it is another thing to put together one that is deeply emotionally engaging. A highly detailed, but dry sounding system will sound great for a while, then you'll loose interest. An emotional engaging one will be difficult to tear yourself away from after several hours of listening. 

In my experience if the basic piece of gear are well chosen for synergy, if you do not enjoy music enough to forget sound it is because you lack  an element or many elements  or miss a factor or many one...

It could be mechanical, electrical or acoustical...

Price has nothing to do with pure musical and  good sound experience...

 Any system at any price must be optimized...

And no factor can replace the other factors at play... At any price...

For example controlling vibrations or the room will not replace equalization, or a too higher noise floor... This is true for my 1000 bucks system as well as for a 100,000 bucks system...

I enjoy music without being bothered by sound defects...I control them if they manifest ...I dont suffer upgraditis at all like in this era 12 years ago  before i learned what to do...

i then go from one joy to the next with the same system/room from one optimization to the next if there is one which seems possible or necessary  at peanuts costs...