To those of you with several flagships, when did you get the feeling that you own "too many"
Or that certain headphones didn't receive enough play time to keep?
Currently owning two and everything is fine, but there are also two more that interest me right now.
I am afraid there is no correct answer to this question. This is one of those situations in which only your own internal "red flag" would do. Personally, there was a time when I found all the flagships to be too expensive and off-limits for my purposes, until i bought my own first flagship, the HD-800, which might not even qualify as a true flagship nowadays. Now I may have between 4 and 6 so-called "bonafide flagships", depending on how many of them may count as "flagships" for any discerning head-fi Jury or "council of judges."
slight_smile
Still, the sheer variety and quantity of currently available headphone/flagship options is always making me feel inadequate about what I have, and I see no cure for that. Even so, I am never beyond the idea of selling one or two of them off to raise funds for something else, but when I do, it is almost never because I feel I have "too many." It has been quite a while, since I ever felt as if I have "too many," and i do not remember exactly when last that happened.
I suspect that a one-size-fits all flagship that would be everything to everyone and satisfy all listening needs does not exist. I am not even sure whether any ten flagships exist that would suffice in that role if someone owns them together, because I have no way to measure the range of flagship listening options that might be available from the hobby at any given time to any given enthusiast, let alone the range of possible needs that are capable of being satisfied. To complicate things even further, manufacturers are always coming up with new technologies, and creating new headphone models that promise new forms of "flagship" listening pleasure, and related new flavors (e.g. Audeze CRBN!). Who am I to say no to, or even keep track of these exciting forms of newness?
With all that said, in any world of limited means, and indefinitely multiplying varieties of listening pleasures and possibilities, lines must necessarily be drawn somewhere. Personally, my curiosity about new flagships and the listening options they might bring is unlimited, I can say that for sure, but without implying that I can afford even 1/20th of them at any given time.
So where to draw the line in the sand and say enough is enough? My answer is that in the same way as there is no one-size-fits all flagship to satisfy all needs, I suspect there can be no one-size-fits-all point at which one might hoist the red flag that says "enough is enough." so here too, I think people ought to be able to decide for themselves, depending on their own preferences, their needs, and the power they have to meet those needs, all of which may work like unstable, and unfixable moving targets anyway...'
Funny story here: when I first visited
David Mahler's "Battle of the Flagships" thread (in 2014--when I began posting on Head-fi), I remember expressions like "insane," "bonkers," and "over-the-top" flooding my almost "shell-shocked" brain, although I also remember finding his classifications and rankings quite helpful, in spite of their imperfections.
Now, after kicking around head-fi for more than 7 years, I have come to appreciate the contribution of David even more, and can now see how easily the gremlins of upgraditis might lead an audiophile down such a rabbit hole... Incidentally, I have also seen, since then, audiophile collections and rigs on the internet that far supersede David Mahler's relatively "modest" (
) collections, in quantity, volume, price-tags, and you name it--and exceeds them several times over... So I can now call them "relatively modest" as their quantity and volume no longer shock me.
In the meantime, it seems as if David Mahler himself has abandoned his project a long time ago, and many of
the 58 cans he was classifying and calling "flagships" would now be considered "mid-fi" by other head-fiers. Still, I cannot help wondering how many headphones he has left today in his stable, and at what point he heard his own little voice saying "enough is enough," that is, if he ever experienced such an epiphany at all.
