Elizabeth, you are one of the few people whose posts I always read.
To provide my humble input to your post, I have the same system I assembled in 1991 starting with Cary Audio’s Tubed Class A Preamp and Monoblocks with Maggies 3.7s. Tubes and Ribbons were what I wanted. For Redbook CD, I bought a Rega Planet when they came out in mid 1990 as I liked the top-loading feature. It is used as a transport which is connected to a Genesis Digital Time Lens and on to a Theta DS Pro Basic II DAC. There is magical synergy with these components. They were leading edge components of their day and still hard to beat for pure musicality. I can transport Sarah Vaughn or Anna Netrebko right into the room. My interconnects are all Mogami studio. My reasoning was if music was recorded in the studio with Mogami, it stood to reason it would work in my system for playback. Reasoanbly priced to boot. The only addition was incorporating my Mac into the system to take advantage of online libraries to supplement my CD-based listening. It is connected via USB to a s/pdif converter and into the time lens.
Aside from that, I have only ever purchased music. I have incorporated a few select tweaks in the intervening years but the system has been ‘locked’ since mid 1990. It sounded great then and sounds great now. I should also add that I ‘graduated’ to this configuration after years of swapping components in a never-ending chase of ‘better’ sound. I made the decision to return to tubes and after hearing ribbons, I never looked back.
Hope that lends some credibility to the notion of getting off the buying bandwagon. Are there better components? Yes, but I have chosen to save that money for music. My Redbook CD playback is nothing short of sublime to me and all who listen.
Please consider staying. I enjoy your input.
