Last night Stinger and I went to a cigar event hosted by Bang & Olufsen and a local cigar company and didn't realize that B&O no longer sold hardware. Back in the '70s, their linear tracking turntable was soooooo elegant! But, fast forward 40-ish years and apparently they changed their business model and are now into headphones, speakers and TVs. The stuff we listened to was very good and their top-of-the-line powered speakers were excellent...but far, far, far beyond my budget. The one product that had me intrigued was their "lunchbox" bluetooth speaker but at $499, out of my range for that type of speaker.
Later we went to the McIntosh demo store and listened to some really, really nice Italian handmade speakers played through an integrated Mac amp (combo tube and solid state). The speakers were beautiful and also sounded excellent. The $30,000 price for the pair kinda left me breathless though....
So ultimately I came to the conclusion that whenever it is that I "rescue" my Sony receiver, tape deck, CD player and JBLs from storage and bring them home, there'll won't be any upgrading to anything close to esoterica (...and I'll be perfectly fine with that...).