I haven't read every post in here so maybe this has already been discussed but I think this is worth saying.
I got into home audio when I was just out of high school. I've always been interested in tech, I have a job doing IT, and you remind me of myself at your age. I was looking for modestly priced little tech upgrades at all points in the system to improve sound quality, I took the DAC board out of my receiver and shipped it to a guy on AVS forum and had him upgrade the op-amps, I installed Bybee filters on the negative terminal of my speakers before the crossover, I had fancy power filtering, and I looked into replacing the outlets.
The one thing that I learned after all these years is that none of those tweaks are going to make much of a noticeable difference if you don't treat the room acoustics first. You have to deal with the speaker placement, listening position, room reverb, and tighten up the bass frequency response in your room before you'll notice any difference with those small tweaks.
Danny talks about this in his videos about winning best of show at audio festivals because they focus so much on getting the room right. while the other companies next door have gear worth hundreds of thousands of dollars set up in a room with no treatment and it sounds much worse.
You can't tech your way to a great sounding system without fixing the issues with your room.
That was a tough lesson for me to learn being the tech guy that I am, if a PC is slow just spend $50-$100 to put more RAM in it, install an SSD, etc. Doesn't work like that in audio. The room is equally if not more important than the speakers you choose at determining your systems overall sound quality. I good room can make a cheap system sound great, and a bad room can make a great system sound bad.
If you haven't already look into Room EQ wizard, and a calibrated mic like the UMIK-1, learn how to measure the frequency response of your room, then focus on speaker placement, and treating your room's flaws with acoustic treatments. There are a few great acoustic channels on youtube GIK Acoustics, and Acoustic Insider, watching all their videos will teach you a lot about proper room treatment.
Once you've got your room under control you music will sound more detailed, bass will be much tighter, and then you can try those little tweaks like upgrading wall outlets to see if it makes a difference.
I'm still improving my room acoustics, my mid and top end is pretty good but I'm still working to get the bass under control, and remove the bass boominess caused by room reverb, but every acoustic panel bring me closer.