I gotta laugh at myself, big time

I am pretty happy that I started the high end journey early in life. I bought my first pair of magnepan 1.6's about 3 years ago (27). In the time since then I have owned Ayre, Modwright, esoteric, marantz, emotiva, Aesthetix, Pass labs, schiit, sanders sound, innersound, Revel, dynaudio, APC, project, and a few others LOL. Needless to say I jumped in with both feet running, heck I even went to RMAF this past year. I now have a system I feel pretty confident is among the best out there for a modest high end investment price. Point being my advice to anyone who is into this stuff is to get the best you can so that you will have that many more years to enjoy it.

Currently I am enjoying chrome or metal audio tapes(recorded with technics rs-az6 deck) on variuos sony walkman cassete players(favorite ex190,ex36 and ex674) and koss porta pro portable headphones.That kind of portable system cost is including tapes around $500.Direct energetic clean dynamic sound with extra resolution which can not be reached 20 times more expensive stereo setup .The biggest iritating thing these days is boxy sound when i hear beat and bass colored by foam inside speaker box.Speakers is dynaudio c1 and harbeth SHL-5

Just started listening to headphones (Creative Aurvana Live 2) after having lost a pair (Grados) that I ignored and hardly ever listened to. Listening to headphones is making me hear what is really possible when the resolution is very high. My system cannot achieve that level of resolution, but it's decent. Been into this for 13 years. I've been through many amps, speakers, and sources over the years: Bryston 14BSST, McCormack DNA 500 (probably shouldn't have sold), Cary MB500's briefly, Harman Kardon HK990,NAD M2, Mcintosh MA6900, Blue Circle BMPH, Wyred ST 1000, Cary CA306, Classe CA 200 and currently own a Yamaha A S2000. Many speakers: Def Tech 7002 and 7000 (heard them in store, liked them but should never have bought)these were my first speakers, Reimer Wind Rivers (probably should never have sold),Talon Raven C,(definitely should never have sold), Def Tech Mythos ST, Walsh 5000 prototypes, Mirage OMD28, and Klispch RF 7II. Still have the Mirage and Klipsch. The problem was at the time I owned some of these speakers, I did not hear them first. Then once owning the speakers it's important to keep trying them with as many amps as necessary. But, after not getting the sound I thought was possible with a couple different amps, I would sell. Even trying two amps with speakers isn't enough. It's all about the choices you make at the time you make them. I'm sure I could put together one heck of a system if I could piece together one system from all the gear I've owned. I've learned you must put the speakers with the sound you like (or love) with a complimentary (matching) amplifier, and then build the rest of your system around that pairing. First you must hear the speakers and make sure you like the sound. I almost always bought used without hearing many of the speakers first and then struggled to find amps for them, so my path was the wrong one. For me though, it has always been about loving music and not about loving gear, and definitely not loving spending money on gear. By this late in the game, I have spent lots of money and am too invested to stop trying and accept less than a satisfying system. I think I have achieved that now with the amp I own, but the cost has been much more than it needed to be. It's been frustrating. The best amp-speaker pairing I've had so far has turned out to be an amp and speakers that have an ok reputation and cost quite a bit less than the others. So another thing I've learned is that cost does not always correlate with performance.

Interesting, Foster_9. I also own a Yamaha AS2000, having previously owned all kinds of stuff, going back to 1972 (Scott/AR/KLH), and have never been happier. Using with Tannoy Turnberry. Immediately previous amp/preamp was Pass XA-30.5/XP-10. Many, many before that: McIntosh MC-275, MA6900, Cary, Manley, etc.

WOW thats great.

It's true, we can wander all over the place in this hobby. I started with a pair of Paradigm Sig S6 as the OP did, but instead of going through the speaker merry-go-round, I started on an electronics merry-go-round, but quickly got off!

But I did find that I could tweak the sound with different things, and after buying a few used speakers to compare, realized I did like the paradigms, I just needed to tweak the sound. They seemed at first too bright, but after swapping in other electronics, I realized my Emotiva gear was too bright/forward for the Signatures. I got some Parasound Halo gear, and found that with good interconnects and speaker cable, got the Paradigms to warm up to the point of almost being too warm! I could add some silver IC's to brighten things up, but first thought I'd try to complete the IC chain with Morrow Audio, as I only need one more pair to complete the chain.

I've also experimented with integrated(used) amps from harman kardon, onkyo and two from NAD. Mostly now, I buy used bookshelves for 50-75 bucks. It's surprising what good stuff you can get for cheap if you have good timing. Sell it for the same when you're done with it, I think there is quite a community of traders out there.