When did you know it was time to upgrade your system, what made you do it?

Hello folks,
I hope everyone is doing well. I'm writing this from my theater room which doubles as a listening room. It's become my favorite work from home location. I'm curious what piece of tech or advancement in tech made you upgrade your system, and how big of an actual difference did the upgrade make?

That's a really good question. I've upgraded quite a bit over the last couple of years. I would probably say what made me upgrade my processor and speakers was Atmos and Dirac Live ART. Atmos created the need for more speakers and a processor with more channels. Then, DLART caused me to want to increase the size of my subs and add more as well. I'd say those were probably the most significant upgrades that created substantial improvements in surround sound and sound quality.

For me it was years ago when I started by getting an AVR that could do HDMI. I was then able to ditch the HDMI switch I was using to send the video to my EPSON EMP-TW700. I was projecting onto a 92-inch homemade screen. This made a nice difference from a convenience standpoint.
After that, the next big jump started around 2016 when I began to put together my current 7.4.4 system which came together over the years. The current system is comprised of the Pioneer Andrew Jones Elite Speakers with the Atmos modules built-in. 4 SVS SB2000-PRO subs. Pioneer Elite SC-99 AVR with an additional AudioSource 2 channel amp to drive 2 rear surrounds. A miniDSP 2X4HD. Epson 5040UB with an Elite Screen 100-inch borderless screen. Nvidia Shield 2017 and SONY UBP-X800. Obviously, there is newer gear out there, I'm just not sure that there is any change in tech that would make big enough of an improvement in my room at the moment to warrant an upgrade...what am I missing out on?

i only upgraded once the unit I had died and was beyond repair.. Units are expensive so I can't update so fast.
My receiver finally died so I am looking at another receiver now. The current one lasted me 13 years.

I replaced an Onkyo pro pre-pro with a modern (at the time) AVR (Denon X4300) to get HDMI inputs and Atmos processing.

I upgraded my speakers from plain black boxes with problematic powered woofers to speakers (Revel) with nice cabinets and a really nice 3 way center.

I upgraded my subs several times stopping at two PSA TV2112's because, well, if you have to ask...

One of my newer upgrades was due to HDR. I had a 70" 4K TV that was not HDR, and I wanted to know what I was missing, so I upgraded to a 77" OLED. That jump was significant, in my opinion.

Another upgrade was due to the fact that I needed external amplification in order to run four height channels. I decided to go with a BasX A7 amp to power my bed level speakers and allow my Onkyo to power my four heights.

My latest upgrade came about because of good 'ole AVNirvana. There is a thread here discussing how many subwoofers you are running in your system. I mentioned in that thread that I have two PB-2000 Pro's, but due to the open concept of my basement I don't get a super tactile experience while watching movies. @Sonnie Parker and @Todd Anderson convinced me to get some bass shakers to fill in that tactile sensation I was missing, and I am so happy they did. For the money this may be the most fun upgrade I've added to my system.

Mike Schramm said:

One of my newer upgrades was due to HDR. I had a 70" 4K TV that was not HDR, and I wanted to know what I was missing, so I upgraded to a 77" OLED. That jump was significant, in my opinion.

Another upgrade was due to the fact that I needed external amplification in order to run four height channels. I decided to got with a BasX A7 amp to power my bed level speakers and allow my Onkyo to power my four heights.

My latest upgrade came about because of good 'ole AVNirvana. There is a thread here discussing how many subwoofers you are running in your system. I mentioned in that thread that I have two PB-2000 Pro's, but do to the open concept of my basement I don't get a super tactile experience while watching movies. @Sonnie Parker and @Todd Anderson convinced me to get some bass shakers to fill in that tactile sensation I was missing, and I am so happy they did. For the money this may be the most fun upgrade I've added to my system.

Click to expand...

And as it happened to be... because of you bringing it up in that thread, I also added a couple of shakers. I've yet to try them out because I haven't had time to rerun DLART, but hopefully soon.

There's been a few moments along the way that forced my upgrade hand. One was the arrival of Atmos processing with 4 height channels... that found me buying the first receiver on the market to offer 4 height channels of processing (a Yamaha Aventage receiver). The other moment is similar to @Mike Schramm. It had to do with 4K HDR, but with projectors. I jumped from a 1080p JVC to a second gen JVC 4K eshift model, but that particular projector didn't have adequate onboard tone mapping. My 4K experience was often hampered by overly dark images or blown-out bright images. So, once JVC introduced its onboard tone mapping, I sold my 4k eshift and bought a Native 4K JVC with Frame Adapt tone mapping. The difference was night and day... that model lasted until I moved to a JVC with a laser light source, which, in my opinion, was another great jump from a convenience/functionality standpoint.

Spidacat said:

I replaced an Onkyo pro pre-pro with a modern (at the time) AVR (Denon X4300) to get HDMI inputs and Atmos processing.

I upgraded my speakers from plain black boxes with problematic powered woofers to speakers (Revel) with nice cabinets and a really nice 3 way center.

I upgraded my subs several times stopping at two PSA TV2112's because, well, if you have to ask...

Click to expand...

About subs... they'll tell you when it's time to upgrade! If you have underperforming subs, they'll let you know right quick!

Todd Anderson said:

There's been a few moments along the way that forced my upgrade hand. One was the arrival of Atmos processing with 4 height channels... that found me buying the first receiver on the market to offer 4 height channels of processing (a Yamaha Aventage receiver). The other moment is similar to @Mike Schramm. It had to do with 4K HDR, but with projectors. I jumped from a 1080p JVC to a second gen JVC 4K eshift model, but that particular projector didn't have adequate onboard tone mapping. My 4K experience was often hampered by overly dark images or blown-out bright images. So, once JVC introduced its onboard tone mapping, I sold my 4k eshift and bought a Native 4K JVC with Frame Adapt tone mapping. The difference was night and day... that model lasted until I moved to a JVC with a laser light source, which, in my opinion, was another great jump from a convenience/functionality standpoint.

Click to expand...

I'm still using my Epson 5040UB. I use the SONY UBP-X800 for discs, and I've played around with the different setting in the Nvidia Shield 2017 that I have in efforts to get some sort of HDR from the projector. For a while I set the video output on the Shield to to 4k 24FPS which the Epson can process. This worked well for movies which is most of what I watch, but I could see the choppy movements on other programming that was streaming at higher FPS. I changed the resolution to 1080p with HDR that seems to have helped. I might just keep it there since I'm not seeing much of a difference between the 4k signal (which was using the E-Shift on the Epson) and the 1080 with HDR. At some point I'll have to upgrade the Epson, so let me know which specific projector you are using and how well you find it to be handling 4k and HDR.

While on the subject of HDR. I have the Spears & Munsil UHD HDR Benchmark disc that they first released. This one did not have much if any documentation when it was released. I still don't know which nits value I should be using to calibrate this Epson. To be honest, even the bits of info that I managed to find online about using that disc are still not clear (to me at least).

Nothing forces an upgrade like a cross-country move!

My old theater was in a constant evolution over its decade of existence. Finding deals on pieces that could upgrade the performance a little bit at a time.

Then we moved, and while I brought most everything but the screen with me, not much of it remains. But what does remain is my desire to purchase upgrades that will have a long useful life. I don't enjoy upgrading, but I enjoy the performance bumps. But I'm getting near the point where I'm locked in on performance and will attempt to only replace pieces that no longer serve their primary function.

I believe my speakers are end game. They require no additional amplification. My Kaleidescape system is only about half full. My screen can't be bigger than it is. I'm about to pull the trigger on a projector upgrade. My processor is long in the tooth, but still performs perfectly. It's the piece I'm concerned may give out, though, due to age. But it has Atmos and DTS:X and I really appreciate the Anthem Room Correction.

Well…visually I used to have a Sony 40” Tube TV. On the release of 720p I purchased a 32” tv for around $2k. Within a year 1080p released and I upgraded to a 40” 1080p for around $2k. Much further down the line I moved to 4k tv. Eventually I purchased a home and decided to make that childhood dream home theater happen. I started with a Panasonic 1080 projector and then about five years ago went all in on a JVC 4k native projector.

On the audio side of things my journey started as a teen. I saved up for a year to buy a Sony 5 disc cartridge player. It sat for a year while I saved enough to buy my first AVR to connect it to. I purchased a Sony 5.1 AVR ( they used to be quality). That player and AVR lasted many a years. I dragged it place to place…back and fourth to my college dorm. Actually gifted it to my brother in law seven yrs ago and it still worked like a champ (lacked modern connections). UPS unfortunately smashed it enroute.
I later moved to Denon…(Sony’s typically dying after a few yrs). I had a 5.1 then moved to 7.1 then 9.2 then 7.2.4 then 9.4.6 I don’t see a need to change speakers until I retire and get a forever home. As for upgrades I’m just really interested in getting the new Denon flagship 15.4 AVR. Currently I’m running scatmos to get 15 channels and two Y splitters to connect my 4 subwoofers.

EDIT: Want to make a point of saying, my home theater journey was greatly assisted by the discovery of (Hometheatershack,the predecessor) AvNirvana and its most gracious creator and staff.