Valentine, I appreciated your post. It was thoughtful and sensitive.

Thx, just felt expressing and discussing the non-music non-gear part of all of this.

Used gear!  Careful shopping can lead to finding great gear at good prices.  I've only purchased a few items new along the way. 

Not to beat the dead horse, but it's a great part of the hobby because you can "buy and try" without much risk of major loss because you can turn the gear over relatively easily.

Unless you start to hoard like some of us... then you have this mountain of gear you have to sell off...  

I love the buy-and-try and the great second hand market. Regular hi-fi in Sweden usually sells for 50% just 1-2 years after purchase. And packing up 80 kg's speakers back and forth. Now that's a quick recipe for a hernia.


Ahh! Hoarding = "Too" much cash.
I need to sell of old gear (and save) otherwise the missus kills me.

i sell my body on the streets. i am clearly an irresistible guy. everything and everyone wants to hit this. but it's all thanks to Anax,LFF,rythmdevil, and kirosia. they trained me well and prepped me with utmost extravagant and unparalleled position to do my duty. i'm basically the gigolo of gigolos.

Ok, so pulling tricks just moved up a notch on my to do-list.


Does the Einsteinic hair doo help?

Oh, now I understand the gigolo suggestion from Anax. Obviously a trade secret as to how you guys are able to afford all that great gear I heard. 

What about bald à la Bruce Willis?

I think we're all techies to some point. The whole "it's all about the music" line is partially an excuse to justify our tech obsession. I see the same thing in cameras - photographers all talk about how you can get excellent results in a point and shoot, how it's all about the image and not the gear, and then go on about the virtues of the latest ultra-fast prime or that vintage piece of kit with the weird 3-blade aperture.

I see nothing wrong with this, as long as there is some honesty and self-awareness involved. The latter is lacking in a lot of people, and it's very easy to go off the deep-end, especially when you're new to this, have money to spend, and don't have a lot of experience or technical knowledge for a frame of reference. It's very easy to end up with something you don't like, and then try to justify to yourself - and indeed everybody else - why you bought it by defending it against perfectly valid criticism. This is when the self-awareness needs to step in, and you need frequent reality checks and comparisons to see where your stuff stands and if indeed you're enjoying your gear in the first place.

Personally, I'm a geek. I like geeking out over things, and I'm happiest when I have something to geek out about. The audio hobby is immediately rewarding, since changing setups yields immediate feedback, and the first few steps usually give you the maximum results, sucking you in. The technical angle is just adding depth to it. Plus, if you're lazy, this is a pretty good hobby too since it involves little more than getting gear and listening.

The only thing that irritates me is when this hobby is used as a status symbol, but going onto that tangent is going to involve a massive rant about mall-fi, and I think we've seen enough of those for now. I don't really do that other place anymore, and my blood pressure is all the lower for it (or it would be, if there was less drinking).

In terms of actually affording the damn things, it's not as hard as it seems when you avoid the FOTM and get stuff with a good resale value. Buy something small, trade it in, then invest a bit more and buy bigger, trade it in, and repeat. Over time, you find yourself accumulating a collection which on the surface appears unattainable, and certainly is that way should you try to buy it all at once. Of course, it's easy to stumble, get caught up in the hype for something and end up with a shiny doorstop (I've done that too) which will put a dent in your budget, but after a few times you usually learn to spot the bad deals. The expensive part of this hobby is being in a rush to get something - if you have patience, and some technical skill to boot, you can usually end up with something which you would have never thought you'd own.