I was clumsy, socially and intellectually, in my original post. It is inherent in an ostensibly review site that it is about consumption. I was trying, as said clumsily, to stimulate debate about consumption. I’m totally with you on your first 2 paragraphs. The same!
As to the third...
When you have devices (dac, amp, whatever) that have no discernible distortion what is the point “improving”? Your point regarding functionality is well taken.
My journey in audio started with visiting audiophile websites and old school audio shops. Early on I became a little obsessed with obtaining what I thought sounded like my perfect system, and as such, I was experimenting with a lot of highly reviewed (subjectively) gear that ultimately disappointed shortly after getting home.
In the end, I did find something I was happy with for my budget at the time from my own subjective listening. One of those components wasn't so highly regarded on audiophile websites, but to me it sounded better than 'highly reviewed' options in the same price range.
A few years ago I relocated. I needed a new sound system, so attempted to replicate my old system as much as I could. The brands that I knew back in the UK were far more expensive and out of my budget at the time here, so I ended up auditioning products I that I could find reviews for.
As I grew older and my budget increased, I got the itch to 'upgrade'. I always assumed audio equipment performance would scale with price, and I never once considered that companies would sell something if they don't yield an improvement in audio. Luckily at this point I stumbled across ASR and my mind was opened.
I always assumed that I could hear differences between things like DACs, then a member here taught me how to do fair blind test between 2 dacs that I thought I heard a difference with. I had a friend help me with it, and low and behold, when properly level matched, I could not tell the 2 dacs apart.
Since then I've settled on well measured hardware that has the functionally I need and at this stage I doubt I'll have any itch to upgrade hardware unless there is a large shift in the market in terms of audio consumption that I'm aligned with. The exception right now being that I am in the process of replacing my speakers, however the main reason was for aesthetics rather than upgrading (however measurement wise I believe they will be an upgrade).
I don't post here much, but I learned a lot about how my brain is fooling me, and that there is a lot of snake oil in the audiophile business. It's taught me to become more savvy, ultimately save money and be more content and happy with what I have.
The drama here can be somewhat entertaining to watch sometimes here too...