Well, if it will make any of you feel better, my wife's hobby is collecting souvenirs. Her plastic snowdome collection alone has cost more than $30,000 in the past 7 years. My main system right now, some of it purchased used cost under $4000.00. I find this hobby (hifi) to offer a lot more bang for the buck than my wife's. I would estimate that I have only spent $2K additional on stuff that I did not end up keeping and then either sold or gave away to family members. I realize that many of you have much more expensive systems, but just think of those 2500 or so crappy plastic souvenir snowdomes the next time you get bummed about the money.
Audio Hype!!
Well I have to be honest,I love high end equipment and all the fun tweaking,and trading,and trying out new stuff. However, it has much hype behind it because I think that we all understand by now that--we are never totally happy with any one piece of gear. By hype I mean we read great reviews of some cable and the miracles that it is suppose to create,but we know deep down(if you have any experiance in this hobby)that it never stands up to our expectations once we use it for some period of time--that is just an example but I believe this holds true to all equipment--and then we sell and try the next flavor of the week which is normally just a side step VS. an upgrade of the last piece we owned. Its a vicious cycle does it ever end?(I know that question is like asking why the earth exists and there is no answer)However, my question is have we just created this illusion of what we wish 99% of the products out their should do, while at the same time damaging our checkbooks to prove the illusion wrong?