But if I had any advice for anyone on this topic, it would be "don't do it". If a tornado blew my house down today, I would not replace any of it.
My current setup isn't going anywhere, since the money's already been spent, and I really enjoy it when I have the chance to use it. So why would I feel this way about something that I've enjoyed for many years? Three reasons.
Reason 1: time. Sitting down and listening to music (and nothing else) is very time consuming, and I've discovered that adults don't really have the time to spend on that - at least I don't. 95% of my available time for music is either in a car or at my desk. I'm too busy to sit in front of my main system. It's turned into a waste of space and money, in many ways.
Reason 2: privacy. Listening to music is mostly a solitary activity. If you share space with someone, they probably aren't interested in you blasting Metallica or Beethoven at elevated volume levels for any length of time. Your sonic immersion is someone else's noise pollution. A system that can produce music at realistic volumes is something you won't have many chances to use if you live with others. Desk, car or headphones are all better real-life options. There's also the issue of noise coming from pets and other family members to mess with your listening. That's just life.
Reason 3: source material. This is the big one. When I started down this path, I assumed that anything that sounded bad could be fixed with better gear. I learned differently when I bought a copy of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon on an MFSL remaster, and realized that was missing was what was (or wasn't) on the record itself. Scottish manufacturer Linn Hi-Fi has a philosophy that says "source first", which is to say that your turntable (or digital source) is the first place to concentrate on before you worry about speakers and amps. If you extend this idea back one level, you realize that the source material - the music that the performer, producer and distributor provide on record, CD or stream - is the ultimate determining factor in how enjoyable the sound will be, no matter what equipment you play it on.
This leads to a rude and ironic discovery that I and many audio guys have learned: the music often sounds worse on your multi-thousand dollar audio system than it does in your car. Good equipment exposes every flaw and compromise in the audio chain, from poor production (and performance) in the studio, to bad mastering, to flaws in the manufacturing of the disc (or bitstream). I have thousands of tracks in my music library. Perhaps a few hundred are good enough to really show what my setup can do. The rest? Meh. If you have high performance gear, sooner or later you have to accept that the music business does not cater to you. Even carefully remastered versions are no better than what the artist and producer decided was good enough.
Almost all of my listening now is done at my desk, while I work. I have a home office, so I can listen all day without bothering anyone, and it does not interfere with what I do (frequently helps). My workhorse audio system is a pair of Audioengine 2+ powered speakers with a built-in DAC, a decent Proficient Audio subwoofer under my desk, and a computer to play uncompressed CD images from my main server along with Apple Music. It's a nice near-field system that sounds really good, and has many of the same sonic characteristics of my main system. It's all I would want if I had to start over*.
If you like music, you can find a lot of computer-based equipment that sounds damned good, and can be had for under $1K. For most of the music you can buy, that's all you need. For less, you can get a really nice set of phones and a headphone DAC/amp for a computer or phone/tablet.
Spend the rest - time and money - on music.
* although I'd probably go a little bigger on the desktop speakers next time, perhaps Audioengine 5's with an outboard DAC, or Vanatoo Audio Transparent One's. Or maybe these from Peachtree.
