I need help with my Equipment addiction


I can't leave well enough alone. My most disappointing days are days like today where I sit down to listen to my system, drink some wine, and unwind and... the system sounds great. I hate that. Nothing to tweak, everything is intergrating well: Clear highs, check. Fast, deep bass, check. Digital sound good with weight and impact, Check. Vinyl sound deep and well rounded with extended highs and excellent speed, check.

That's when the trouble starts. I start thinking, "What if changed cartridges?" "Well then I need a step up transformer, or a seperate MC phono stage", "Maybe I should just look at new preamps, even thbough I love mine now", "Then I need a separate phono preamp, I've always wanted an ARC preamp", then "Hey then I could buy an ARC tube amp for the high end of the Maggies and get bi-amp them"

Does it ever stop? How can I stop the cycle? I think I'm going to drink some more wine.
macdadtexas
Chadeffect pretty much nailed it.

I just spent collectively about a week dialing in speaker positioning, 1/8 of an inch at a time. Luckily the songs I use for reference are ones I still like, but they've pretty much stopped becoming music and more like research material.
Macdad - Pretty humourous thread but I'll make a serious suggestion. You're obviously a project- and goal-oriented person. Instead of trying to refine your system by a smidgen, why not spend that $800 for an preamp upgrade and buy a bad used piano and start picking out the music on it? That'll intensify your attention and enjoyment of the music way more than some audio tweak.

Or here's another idea: I suspect I have a similar personality as yours (as well as the same speaker brand) and what I do is set active listening projects for myself. A couple of months ago, I decided I had a ridiculously undeveloped knowledge of the Mozart operas. So, over the next 9-12 months, I'm going to listen extensively to many of them and really remedy that. So you don't know enough about 30s Delta Blues? The music of the band Triumph? Jacques Brel? Dive into it in an organized way.

There - two self-help ideas in a single post. Cheers.
I suggest keep buying stuff. You'll know you've got it right when you're not thinking about your system and listening to the music.
Macdaddy, ill venture a guess and say that your system probably sounds pretty f*in good right now.