[Publius]

Time to be a party pooper.

Looking back on my gear purchases over the past, um, 2 years, the only piece of major gear I've bought is an iPod. No headphones, no speakers, no sources, no amps. (Ignoring the analog rig side of things, and even then, I'm being quite skimpy in my purchases, and I'm slowly realizing there are fewer things left on that todo list than I thought.)

Looking forward, any headphone upgrade is going to cost me $500 or more, and I don't want ANY amp or source or cable upgrades at all. I've listened to enough to know that I'm never going to miss anything. And I'm getting just as much satisfaction in my listening, if not more, by not caring about the gear.

Even if there was a difference, it would be at such a price point that I could never justify spending that money on gear as opposed to buying new music. At $6 a CD from yourmusic, I've already put together a list of CDs worth over $1000 that I want to buy. I am going to get much, much more satisfaction out of that investment then spending that on, say, one or two new pairs of phones, or one or two new sources. About the only thing that might be better than music is speakers, but that's because I have a grand total of two speakers in the house, and they are from a crap sony hifi.

Long story short: I'm probably going to DIY about 8 speakers for various purposes, and get a new phono stage for my table, and that's about it. No more gear purchases for the next 20 years or so - until my tastes in music atrophy.

 

[Oistrakh]

good for you

 

[JohnFerrier]

Maybe when you really find out how much your gf spends on shoes, you'll be eyeing Valhallas again. LOL.


. clarification

 

[Publius]

Funny you mention that! My GF spends about $150 a year on shoes. Which, averaged over the last 4 years, is less than I've spent per year on phones+amps+sources.

 

[skev13]

You must teach your wallet saving ways to the rest of us

 

[Kirosia]

so... how are you not an audiophile anymore?

 

[Oistrakh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Publius Funny you mention that! My GF spends about $150 a year on shoes. Which, averaged over the last 4 years, is less than I've spent per year on phones+amps+sources.

and I suppose she pays for her shoes?

 

[Publius]

Eh, Kirosia, perhaps you're right. I still care about sound quality more than most, but if I'm still an audiophile, I'm waaay off the wagon, in a manner of speaking.

What's most ironic for me is that I know my gear so well that I understand all of its faults, and yet I can't really compel myself to fix them. Example: I don't hear an entire octave of bass on my Etys - I notice the bass on every other headphone except them. And they have weird treble issues. And my amp still has a light hum. The background noise of my iPod is significant through the headphone out. The characteristic sound of my A900s doesn't really do anything nice for me. And yet I'm not really compelled to fix any of it.

I guess that I might still value optimal sound reproduction, but no longer above other things.

 

[Jeff Guidry]

You likely reached the point I did and got to a fidelity level that clearly was beyond what you needed. I got an NAD C542 CDP with a Fireston iCute Beyond amp and Supplier power supply. Frankly, the quality of the reproduction of this setup is far beyond what I need for fun involving listening. In fact, it sounds TOO good for most of the music I listen to, as the blurring and lower fidelity of my humble Sony PCDP with KSC-75 headphones provides euphony, where the main set up with the same music sounds too clean, and much less involving.

As Bud asked in Wall Street, how much is enough?

 

[joneeboi]

You are an audiophile with an underdeveloped head-fi. Spending $1k on music sounds like audiophile.

 

[Audiofiler]

Quote:

Originally Posted by skev13 You must teach your wallet saving ways to the rest of us

Yes teach us

 

[Geoff Rymer]

Wallet saving? He's about to blow US$1k on music! Admittedly this is a very admirable thing to do, but it ain't gonna save any wallets...

 

[iGig]

Very good, I'm sure you'll love your DIY speakers because anything is better than the speakers you have now.

Enjoy your music.

 

[Spareribs]

You bring up an interesting point. I love gear but at the same time gear is potentially also a distraction to music enjoyment.

The ultimate goal is to forget about the gear, be lost in the music and drift off into your realm of escapism.

HOWEVER.......

The one annoying thing I don’t like about cheap non audiophile gear or lack of good amp is that there can be that annoying high frequency digital sound that’s noticeable especially at loud volume peaks.

You don’t need to spend a lot of money but if you get something decent to smooth out/reduce the occasional annoying digital glare, it’s worth it.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

You realize you responded to a thread whose last post was 15 years ago, right?

Now, you don’t need to buy music. You can spend it all on gear.