Titian,
Well, slightly different problems, but i think the main problem is common to us and many others.
I newer was a devoted HI-FI fan, and in my listening room of 15 squaremeters I can very well make do with my standard Naim kit and middle-sized Ruark floor speakers with one subwoofer in between. My wife doesn't allow me to use the bigger living rooms, and this would even interfere with the TV watching and other things.
The main problem is too many CDs, which need too much room and too much time to be listened to. And I can't stop buying the CDs, when possible, - nobody knows, when they will become deleted (I too have relative short time ago among others aquired the Haenssler "complete" Bach Edition, and most of the Brilliant Classics Bach Edition , as you know including two sets of cantatas - ca 120 CDs - , seem impossible to get through, how on earth did Bach find time to compose all that high inspired music), and every time I aquire more than 10 CDs, I use much time to reorganize my collection in order to put the newcomers in a place , where I can find them without using too much time!! I run through my entire collection (don't listen to them though) every three months, but I can't find anything, of which I can say, that I probably shall not listen to it any more. And I don't care for recording quality, and consequently I own many older recordings, as well as I have transferred a lot of older LPs to CD. I should never be able to discard a musically satisfying recording for the sake of bad recording quality.
Maybe I shall find the time, when I retire, but I don't for that reason plan to take that step so far.
Kind regards,