[realmassy]

I have a little secret to keep it fresh...

I love the HD800's, and as such, I've built a pretty splashy rig around them, tube amp, tube dac, etc.  My wife has a job that requires her to travel about a week and month and I only use my HD800 rig when she is gone.  They are a novelty every time I turn them on because I don't get to use them all the time, and it is my consolation prize for missing my wife

Some people may think it's weird having a setup that is only used one week a month...  I get that...  But the time I do spend with it is wonderful.  It gives me something to look forward too when my wife is gone and I spend hours every night, late in to the night, enjoying track after track.  Every time I fire it up, I get a bit giddy - who else can say that about a system they've had for a while?

I guess what I am saying is that I agree with marcoarment and Jude; that it is easy to always want 'the next best thing' and this is my way of keeping what I have fresh and new to me.

Happy listening!

Nice post.
I'm kind of doing the same with my STAX rig, with a difference: this is my only system, but I only turn it on when I feel I REALLY want to listen to music and not just spend a couple of hours with the headphones on my ears, browsing and playing and reading with my iPad. I used to spend much more time with my headphones but it wasn't time spent listening, not paying the due attention to the music.
Now I only use my 009 a couple of times a week but I enjoy it a lot.

 

[realmassy]

And a suggest for the OP, as other have said: discover more music. 5 years ago I didn't listen to any classical muaic, now I mainly listen to classical, and ther are tons of less known composer to discover when you are running out of ideas. Subscribe to a music forum and spend time on it, reading, discussing and taking notes of the recommendation, forget about head-fi and the 'hardware', and focus on the 'software'

 

[whoever]

I just sold all my gear to keep just one: zx1 + harmony 8. No amp, no aftermarket cable, no bulk. ..

I think 90% of our ability of always getting a new thing isn't necessarily about the sound. ...but about treating our common junkyness...it's all about the fix you get when waiting/buying/track checking/yelling at the post office. ..i think the rush you get there is much more intense then 60% of the one you get while listening.
So it's a real challenge to stop this game and to resist the call inside you for a new fix....

not speaking about our need to be positively"feedback'd"....

sigh...

but still. ..i love it hahaha. Now let's see how long i last.

Though i have to say, there is still sometimes, quite often actually this point where you listen to something, either on your portable or home Rog, an you just stop and start to shiver because if the beauty you hear....so in a way....argh....well, you know what i mean!

 

[Tintinabulum]

Agreed.

When you find your interest wavering its a great time to get back to what drew you here originally..........the music. 

Its a great time to rediscover music styles you may have forgotten about,  perhaps a good time to discover new genres.

Before you know it the spark will be lit once more and the "gearhead" inside you will awaken once more.

Along the lines of listening to more music, can I recommend Meridian Sooloos as a way of listening to more of your music collection. The ease of access and the various ways of delving in to your collection are excellent.

 

[Mortalcoil]

Along the lines of listening to more music, can I recommend Meridian Sooloos as a way of listening to more of your music collection. The ease of access and the various ways of delving in to your collection are excellent.

 Are you referring to the $7000.00 music server?
 If so could you please supply me with next weeks winning lottery numbers? ....... lol

 
 Joking aside, it does look interesting.

 

[Tintinabulum]

You can get an MC200 for £800, an add on MS200 (fair SQ upgrade) for £350. Not cheap but not $7000. Using the MC200 with the iPad app gives most of the functionality of the C15. Check out Hitchhikers, people end up listening to much more music with Sooloos.

 

[KT66]

I lost interest in my main two channel system - LP12 etc - it's been tweaked to perfection over the years
and any meaningful upgrade would be silly money that I can't justify.
 
So I got into Head-Fi - this is an ever changing world where boxes are sensible money.
 
After that I'll buy some more guitars................

 

[mikek200]

Nice post.
I'm kind of doing the same with my STAX rig, with a difference: this is my only system, but I only turn it on when I feel I REALLY want to listen to music and not just spend a couple of hours with the headphones on my ears, browsing and playing and reading with my iPad. I used to spend much more time with my headphones but it wasn't time spent listening, not paying the due attention to the music.
Now I only use my 009 a couple of times a week but I enjoy it a lot.

My feelings as well.,
 
Since I've gotten the 009's,I've doing more listening ,rather than judging my gear
Even recordings ,that I've been listening to for twenty years,seem to bring on a new meaning,,  ,especially my older classical stuff..
 
I doubt whether ,I will loose interest in music,as there is more genres for me to try,and learn to appreciate

 

[Focker]

  I thought this hobby was about music not who has the most toys, or more specifically the most expensive toys. The system I have now that cost less than $2000 reproduces music as well as I need to to be reproduced, far better than any stereo system I have ever owned before and now the payoff, listening to really great music any time I want.

 
Right on. I get excited about new/better gear, but ultimately the gear is not what matters most - the music is. 

 

[JCCI]

Somebody mentioned an AT L3000 headphone (the leatherhead)?
I have one for sale, with 4-pin balanced plug. Looks like new.

 

[macdevign]

   
Right on. I get excited about new/better gear, but ultimately the gear is not what matters most - the music is. 

I think  what  generally fuel interest of audiophiles (human is after all a creature of curiosity)  is their quest for better sound (though what constitutes a good sound is pretty subjective as everyone's preference is different) and curiosity for so-called listening to their music in a different way ( may not necessary be better way) through different hardware (equipment, tweaks, interconnects, headphones and stuff like that ) or even software (  pure music, amarra , audirvana etc).   Questions like "how does my music sound with this gear,  interconnect , headphone cable, headphone ? or  how does this tweak improves on the sound ?" really drive that interest further. To me, both music and gears both equally play a important part of sustaining this hobby. As long as there is ever flowing new gears, new technologies and new music coming in to listen to and to experiment with,  it is really hard to lose that interest.

 

[estreeter]

I'm now spending a lot more time looking for new music having found what I consider my own 'end-game' combinations. Oddly enough my biggest 'problem' now isnt that a lack of the gear I want - it's that I question why I even own a Marantz speaker amp and a pair of Monitor Audio speakers when that combination seems to do little other than amplify my TV. I'd also like to find a new home for my LCD-2R2s but I expect there are already plenty of those in the Head-Fi classifieds. 
 
(Heard a tune I thought was fantastic last night in - of all places - a bar but no-one on either side of the bar could tell me the actual name of the tune or who sang it. Frustrating, particularly as I dont listen to radio stations any more and I rarely listen to anything that's charting)

 

[Hijodelbrx]

I've been into this 'good sound' hobby for decades. I've accumulated 15 -20k worth of gear and plateued yrs ago. Here's a few things that are truisms to me. The amount on of he term gear-head is someone who spends more money on gear than music (always seems counter intuitive to me and yet there can be no doubt that gear heads have existed since the advent of the hobby!).

 

[Hijodelbrx]

Plz disregard my last post, tried editing and it got garbled! Maybe I'll try again from my computer instead of using my phone!

 

[macdevign]

I've been into this 'good sound' hobby for decades. I've accumulated 15 -20k worth of gear and plateued yrs ago. Here's a few things that are truisms to me. The amount on of he term gear-head is someone who spends more money on gear than music (always seems counter intuitive to me and yet there can be no doubt that gear heads have existed since the advent of the hobby!).

Listening to music is very enjoyable experience but to listen with endless possibility of so called "beautiful and addictive" sound produce by different hardware ( and software) is even more so. To some audiophiles, it feels like listening to the same music in a entirely different way even though the sound difference is just subtle to some. Imagine every here and there, someone respectable in head-fi review a equipment ( be it headphone, DAC, headphone amplifier) and give it thumb up, and next moment you wonder how your music will sound like using such equipment. Who can really resist that ?  LOL,  What can I say, just like beauty lies is in the eyes of the beholder,   beauty lies in the ears of the beholder (headfi-ers ) ...   There must be a good reason why audio maker industry can survive this long and still striving and people willing to pay good money for their gears, and so music alone  can't be the only reason why people enjoy music.   Some equipment with the right synergy seems to produce the sound nirvana with your music to create that kind of emotion connection (think Apple product)  that one find it unforgettable and make you glue to your seat for hours.