Which is more important?

I lived in a city that had an army base once and the local pawnshops usually had good selections of audio equipment. When someone was transferred out,they sold their stuff that would then get bought by guys(and women) who transferred in.

It seems to me that with the mobility needed to serve in the military and what you said about different listening rooms,using the shops and audiogon make sense.

You can figure what you want,what you can afford,and put together a temporary system-knowing it will be for sale in a couple/three years.

Ah yes,that wonderful government housing! For a reasonable amount of money you can get a good set of headphones and more importantly a headphone amp. You'll get awesome sound that wont change when you move! When your a free man again
(har,har) you can start building a real system. This is also good for not pissing off the wife and neighbors.

I agree with Onhwy61 - you need to assess your systems shortcomings and develope a plan. Were I you I would get the best neutral monitors & amp that I could afford, and a good sub woofer. (If you are happy with your speakers and amp as they are then perhaps you should do nothing! Its all about synergy). This would allow you to move from quarters to quarters without having to worry much about room size etc. Once chosen I would let those components dictate future changes, that is your pre-amp and CDP. Your turntable set up is just fine as it is.

Nice system, you could play around with some tubes for something a little different..But, the next level for you is small steps as your system has gone past mid-fi level IMO.

I would also note that with your present quarters you have the same problems many apartment dwellers face and a total and lasting fine tune of the system is not $$$ something you may like to do in someone else's space.

Do you have good speaker stands? Onhwy61 has some pretty good advice for you IMO.

Dave

Resonance control and speaker placement. This can be done very inexpensively per many of the threads here. Try cardas.com for placement recommendations and try any number of resonance tweaks, including even the very cheap. Oh, and lifting your cables off the ground is huge along with proper polarity (see the Wood Effect book)and isolation.