I know what perfection sounds like, I have heard it, I am short about a million dollars for the equipment, and then I would need to get a bigger house to fit it and then treat the room for its arrival. In the meantime, I think I have my endgame speakers and amps, will eventually change the pre amp, and will need a better turntable and phono stage.
to a point I enjoyed listening more when I had a lesser system. Yes music sounds better now, but some of the music I grew up on (punk rock) sounds terrible on an audiophile system and I usually listen to that on my wifi speaker, or if I do play it on the big system I do not sit in sweet spot, I just tool around and listen, but not intently like I do when listening to what we would call the masters.
My room at MSRP is better than $50k, luckily I bought it all used.
the store I buy from, the listening rooms start at about $20,000. the mid room is about $50,000, the high room is about $150,000 and the top room will fluctuate between $250,000 and $1M depending on what speakers are on display.
I have been shopping there for about 30 years now so when the Wilson Master Choronosonics came through and the XVX, I got the room to myself with my playlist for about an hour. I will venture to say that was the fist and only time songs like Tool’s Pneuma and Dead Can dance have been played on a $1M system. It was truly magical to sit there and listen to lightning hopkins, you can almost hear the dust particles under his toe tapping. Brubecks unsquare dance you can hear Morellos stick work like he is standing next to you.