Then this forum would just close down.
Roger
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Several years ago when blu tack was widely used to hold speakers on stands there were suggestions that the colour of the blu tack made a difference to the sound. Did I carefully audition every colour and decide for myself? No. Do I think the idea is rubbish? Yes. Would I bother to post about it? Well I guess I just have.
Roger
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I’ve always stuck to Naim gear and only aimed at increasing sound quality over a period of many years, and that has served me well.
Trading downwards or sideways just for a change in sound signature is a recipe for dissatisfaction I think - unless you’re certain that you’ve found a new sound signature that you prefer a long-term.
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Or possibly, as with the OP, trade down but to something you previously liked (though in his case speakers were a gamble – fortunately at least from first impression, a successful gamble).
Unlike you, the only Naim gear I’ve had was a streamer (not counting the power supply was persuaded by the dealer to add, promising significant uplift, but soon got rid of as very poor value for money). As with yourself I was always seeking the best I could (=best I could afford), always an upward move, but with things carefully chosen (that one mistake aside. I haven’t been one for tweaking, trying this only that and the other to try and screw the deposit lost out of performance from the boxes, preserving to get to the black boxes right and fiddle around – I have plenty of other hobbies for fiddling (It is hard to enjoy playing music while constantly fussing about whether this, that, or something else is better. So my moves have generally only involved changing things substantial enough to be really noticeable -however this does not rule out the potential for something like a cable change should a no cost opportunity to try for a rare occasion when I have a moment, but in general I really can’t be bothered to explore such things, music sounding so great as it is.
Out of curiosity I did once make myself a pair of interconnects from scratch (silver conductors with PTFE insulation) and found them noticeably better than the Mogami cables I had been using (blind comparison of course), so I did switch to them - but would have been more than happy reverting to the Mogami had the silver ones not been my own.
People are free to voice whatever opinions they like of course. How much weight you give to them depends on a number of factors. If someone rubbishes a particular product that they have no experience of then in my view that is a worthless opinion because it isn’t based on actual performance of the product. It’s just based on someones’s personal preconceptions, prejudices, beliefs or whatever. Why would I want to judge a product based on that?
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That’s a thing one has to learn when asking people on a Forum; whose advice is worth taking notice of. Anyone who says a simple ‘X is best’ is generally worth ignoring. Just like anyone who adds ‘period’ after their advice.
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Without the context of my entire post, with only that sentence, absolutely. An inky black background forum would be.
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Oh no, you give the impression that you feel concerned. We are sorry 
Even trading upwards can be problematic.
We’ve heard a number of esoteric DACs but they all sound different. We are now quite used to what we have. Imagine if we splurged £10K and ended up unhappy, or feeling we’d only moved sideways!
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It’s certainly possible to invest very large amounts of money over the years buying things which in reality only bring incremental improvements. Much better to resist the temptation to do this and wait until funds are available to purcahse something that will bring a substantial improvement. I’ve expereinced this several times over many years. When one finally buys something that does make a really substantial improvement it puts all those minor improvements, that maybe you thought were important at the time, into perspective. You now see them for what they really were - minor and insignificant.
The problem, at least for me, is that I’m not a patient person. If I see the opportunity of an improvement now, however minor, I’ll take it rather than waiting say two years until I can afford that really big improvement. It’s a weakness of mine, and of course in the long run it’s counterproductive. Not a problem anymore though, I’ve given all that up! I very much regret the money I’ve wasted but it’s easy to look back and evaluate one’s past actions from the perspective of greater experience. That’s life, and it’s partly how we learn, develop and come to realise how we should proceed in the future. So I shan’t be too hard on myself. Now where did I leave that double-barrelled…
Yes, I meant trading up to better (for you) SQ, not trading up to something more costly.
It’s easy to get in a mess mixing manufacturers, which is why having clear upgrade options is great (if you’re sure Naim is the sound signature for you).
And even in the Naim ranges there are upgrades that may not suit everyone, or not give VFM.
I quoted the last line of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which was originally written by Wittgenstein in German in the trenches in WW1. 
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Ah, I thought it was an English expression.
Here we have “ le silence est d’or, la parole est d’argent “ ( silence is gold, speaking is silver). Discretion is more valuable than superfluous words.
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Here’s my opinion:
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Christopher Hitchens’ quote is appropriate here, I feel.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can also be dismissed without evidence.”
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