Thanks everyone for chiming in. You gave some very good advice and perspectives.
I’ve decide to give my self a 6 month “no-spend” period. Last night I was already looking at the Lyngdorf TDAI 1120 and Warfedale Elysium 1 
Keep calm and spend no money 
Thanks! 
I started my HiFi adventure before CDs, Clearly, your “journey” should be required reading for all of us who started to do something one way then changed and changed and changed again and again. I still have Aerial Acoustic boxes in my garage from 1998. So you are not alone on this Rabbit hole adventure!
Yes! I have been into high quality systems all my life. What I have recently discovered is that to get immersion, you can spend $100k on speakers and components in a dedicated listening space to get that; but if instead you just get a high quality DAC+ Headphone amplifier, fed by a Roon Nucleus with internal storage and adding Tidal and Qobuz, delivering it all via Focal Utopia headphones, you’ll discover Nirvana. And, actually hear the difference between high and low resolution formats.
This really made me smile. I have made so many changes to my hifi over the years and dread to think how much money I have wasted searching for the perfect sound.
I have what I think is a good system now. Devialet 220 expert pro integrated amp with built in DAC and Spotify connect. Roon Nucleus as music server and steamer that is now my main source. I have a Copland 823 CD that I rarely use now.
I do have to defend to defend Cambridge Audio a little. I have two Cambridge Audi devices. The Azur 751 BD bluray player and 851N network streamer and pre amp. I have had these for 10 and 5 years respectively and have never had a problem with either of them. And they sound good.
Anyway thanks for the post, I bet there are a lot of people who can empathise with your story.
One thing you didn’t mention is hearing aids. Those can really mess up a great rabbit hole… especially headphones.
Edit: BTW - they cost about 3K. Just sayin’.
I don’t like headphones for longer listening sessions I must admit, but thanks anyway.
Thanks for your post. It made me laugh, and to a small degree it reminded me of my situation. I have a pair of Magnepan 1.7i speakers (about $2k), a Aric Audio Tube Preamplifier. (about $1200) and a very old (35 years I think) HCA 2200 that I bought used a few years ago for $400. Tunes delivered by old PC as ROON Server (Qobuz; Tidal) → Node 2i → Old Cambridge CXN (v1). Add a Schiit headphone amp for my OPPO PM3s and Sennheiser 600s.
The Parasound died and so I started looking for a replacement amp thinking $1500-$2000. Like you I was thinking I had too many boxes. So I bought a Musical Fidelity DAC ($2200) with integral headphone amp. The Node 2i is still in the mix but network connection is now wired instead of AirPlay. But I still needed an amp. Since my ‘listening room’ was temporarily converted to a sewing room and there was no place to sit, I was not in a hurry. But now the sewing project is finished, and I a am looking at a used ModWright 225i Hybrid (tube pre/ss amp) integrated ($5300). in the meantime I purchased Audeze LCD3 headphones ($1500)
I had better luck, as so far I am very happy with my purchases, but my $1500-$2000 upgrade has turned into a $9000 journey. 
As often pushed by the " idiot YouTubers" that have already put OP in the hole.
Hahaha The hifi journey can be a bumpy ride, and you often don’t end where you were going in the first place.