[Puretfp]

The truth is, there's no ultimate anything in audio, well not absolute or forever endgame. This hobby highly revolves around curiosity and building immunity to performance levels over time. All you do by upgrading is set a new standard you have to beat, up the game. Within a few months that endgame DAP or IEM just sounds normal, less and less wow factor as you build immunity to the sound and performance.

Shortly after your back on Head-fi, back in the saddle looking for more, that upgrade. Then add on top of all this how quickly new DAP's come out now, there simply no end, for anyone.

This is true with Guitars/pedals/gear, Home Stereo, etc etc. I haven' t been on here in a hot min but while i was gone i probably plunked down 14k in the guitar/home audio/LPs world. Happy over there and I'm still super happy with my AK120 (og) 2+ yrs, that with my Oppo PM3 or Shure SE425 and i'm good to go, sure the UI on the old AK120 ain't the greatest, its clunky some times BUT it def just plays music and i have had less problems with it than any of my past Ipods (5 of em) or my Iphone SE (which actually sounds pretty good with ALAC files and those HP mentioned above) but that phone isn't even 1 year old and i have had a ton of problems with it already including my music just disappearing out of thin air (happened to my old ipod touch too)

My best friend always says, once yer done researching and get the gear ya want go enjoy and don't look at whats new or you'll just be bummed out and think ya made a bad decision.

Btw fwiw a tube amp with a good TT and good cart and some good speakers is a thing of Beauty that i relearned HP don't bring for/to me, though i still love my HP and DAC for on the go, at home its mostly analog these days.