Equipment that has made you 'stop' looking?


OK we all know what a merry-go-round audio can be. For those of us who are incessant upgraders, what components have you found that either have stopped or seriously curtailed your search for better?

For me its my Audio Tekne Cables and my vintage Classe DR3 amps (25 wpc high current class A design designed by Dave Reisch in the early days of the company). My Green Mountain Audio Continuum 3s would probably fall into this category, but I would probably buy the next statement models that Roy Johnson builds sight unheard.

Kerry
musicfirst


I recently sent my MFA Lumi preamp and M120 amps to Mr.Scott Frankland for repairs and some upgrades. The Lumi was upgraded about as far as Scott could take it. The amps received more modest upgrades. The components now have a significant "wow" factor compared to before the mods/repairs. But wait, there's more....

And, per Scott's suggestion, I replaced the amp power tubes with Genalex KT 88 Gold Lion Reissues, and the amps have improved to yet another level.

Overall improvement is extraordinary. And this, in a system which sounded damn good before.

I've yet to seriously address room acoustics, but that's coming....
Simaudio evolution series, specifically Supernova cdp and P-7 pre. W-5 amp will magically turn into a W-8 or W-7 mono's one day
A intuitive long shot a couple years ago from Craig's List satisfied my long search for main's: A church had a pair of mid-1980's Yamaha SX-1 cathedral organ monitors that turned out to be the best self-powered main's I ever heard (after a few hours of old school re-conditioning).

Each has 320 watt SS amps, 15 inch bass drivers in the lower unit's, and three independently facing upper units (forward and L/R at 30 degrees), each loaded with one 6 inch mid and 2 ultra-smooth tweeters. I adopted them for keeps after auditioning the speakers' "voices". They're perfect for a 30 x 30 room.