The argument against upgrading

Well said!

Sound quality is objectively out there. Enjoyment of music is an individual’s inner subjective experience. They are closely related but not necessarily synonymous.

Sound quality is related to acoustical and psycho-acoustical parameters linking a system a room and a pair of ears attached to a head...

Enjoyment of music is proportional to our perception of music through or brain /heart/body... The 5 th Symphony of Bruckner is not made  just of sounds but of meanings which we must learned  and are available not only through our perceptive body but through our feeling heart and delivered, received or not, to our understanding mind...The symphony may be even partially understood reading a sheet of paper ...

Then the enjoyment of music is related to sound quality  through not only  our body but with it  but through our heart and with it  and through our mind and with it ...(there is not much short time memory of sound quality but there is a long term memory of sound quality hidden in our unconscious/conscious feeling body )

Most people listen music with, each one of them,  a different access to it because of their personal history of the relation between their body, heart and mind...

Most people will never learned anything from Bruckner 5 th symphony nor from Ali Akbar Khan or from Nigerian Yoruba  Speaking drum or from Sun Ra...Or Philip Glass ...Or Scriabin...Why ?

Music like acoustics must be learned...

Tastes suit crocodiles,as human we must develop ourselves beyond basic tastes for repetitive rythms or simplistic moods or commercial programmings...In the same way knowing acoustics basics help us to free ourselves from marketing audio upgrades  squirrel circle..

Acoustis basics must be learned too as music...

There is no tastes in acoustics as concept only psycho-acoustics biases created by our personal history which limit us facing all possibilities, biases must be eliminated or replaced by training not by impractical double blind test ...

«Are you not a bit snob Bob ? »--

Life’s too short. Just do it!  Whatever it is that turns you on. 

Life’s too short. Dont do it!

Because it matter which kind of things turn you "on".

Think before acting,

even before a tempting upgrade or a tempting woman...

 - = X

 + =

  x  =/ X

Upgrading is like a wedding, you think before tying the knot...

I call optimization of what you have  the thinking process before acting but and only if necessary when the times is ripe.....

@newton_john - your question has some relation to the issue to diminishing returns; something i think all of us struggle with at some point. The thing is, a diminishing return only makes sense over single component, cable or room acoustic changes one may make to a system, and where hearing ability to distinguish between mere fractions of betterment over sound realism would make anyone wonder if it’s worth its while. But it cannot apply to the entirety of a system, where each fraction and rare full percent or two of positive improvement, added up over the multiple changes that building an entire system entails, can result in a delta of a whole 12 percent gain of realism. It is all about leaving no stone unturned, from an inexpensive DIY tweak to the huge expense required of a truly high performing component upgrade - and the experience of having heard what a full twelve to fifteen percent change to sound realism, is what takes my spirit from mere appreciation to profound understanding - it’s about getting as close to the unbelievable kick and grasp of the time domain that live music delivers; that crazy sense of truly being in the moment. I know for myself, that each three percent incremental gain has helped me understand composition better - that inexplicable understanding and joy that comes from hearing deep into the music. 
I only began to understand stevie wonder’s superstition, like it was the first time I’d ever heard it, after a break of a year with my system gaining an extra ten percent of soundfield realism. Same with Mahler’s Fifth, and Bruckner in general. I never truly understood the idea of God in Bach’s toccata and fugue d minor prior to that moment.

The thing is, the growing realism of soundfield that comes with increasing signal integrity and minimally degraded signal transmission, the deeper the beauty of the knowledge it brings. It is the very reason why we are each on this amazing journey. Look deep, it is in everyone of us, driving each of us in different and varying degrees to find inner peace with what is enough.

Perhaps you feel the way you do now because you have found your enough. Perhaps you still sense you have not turned enough stones to understand the concept of diminishing returns can never apply to the realism gain of an entire system. Perhaps your sensibility of contentment lies on a different and higher level with other things in life to not need to put more effort into turning more stones. It’s different for each and every one of us. The thing is not to use the personal limitations of where we are each at to draw an absolute ceiling for all. I’ve found my ceilings getting broken again and over again each time I believed I’d found the limit to how realistic music reproduction can get - it’s breathtaking and mind blowing, this surreal hobby of ours.

In friendship - kevin