At some point in building a system, the changes stop making the music more music and start making it just different. You swap a cable and something shifts, but you're not sure it shifted somewhere better. You try a different tube and the top end opens, but the midrange feels slightly drier. Every adjustment has a tradeoff, and none of them feel like progress anymore — just lateral moves between versions of the same system.

That's a signal worth heeding.

It doesn't mean the system is perfect. It means it's in balance. The components have found a working relationship with each other and with the room, and the music is coming through in a way you can sit with for hours.

I've had systems I left alone for an entire year and loved more at the end than at the beginning.

But then, every so often, that magical piece of new kit arrives and ball game over. Magic. And when magic happens that's when you know you've done it right.

Always keep an eye and an ear open for that bit of magic that's just around the corner, but if the changes you're making aren't love at first listen, they may simply just be different and that, my friend, is where you have to just politely say no.

Learn to tell them apart.