Originally Posted by
montesquieu
Can't relate to that at all, the better my kit gets the more I want to listen to it, and the more varied music I want to listen to as well. I buy as much if not more music now than I did in my uni days as a music student - half a dozen LPs yesterday from Oxfam in Wokingham, good stuff too. The biggest issue is where to put them!
I actually find it a big source of amusement that when I was in my teens and early 20s, 'fun' was generally defined as going round to my mates' houses with a bag of records (or have them come to mine), listening intently to the music with a bit of chat alongside some tea, biscuits and (if it was in the evening) alcohol. The hifi wasn't really the thing as most of us were too skint to afford anything but absolute budget gear, but it was hugely enjoyable and nobody spent time fussing about cartridge settings cos there was no way to set them!
Fast foward 30-40 years and what's some of the most fun you can have? Go round to your mates' houses with a bag of records, listening intently to the music with a bit of (admittedly often hifi-related) chat, + refreshments. In fact I did that for much of yesterday at Westlower's place (report on his new Tannoys to follow).
In the middle of course was wife, kids and family life and all that that for so many years consumed every penny and most of my attention, but now that both cash and attention are a bit more free, it's a lovely thing to get back into, and hifi forums have certainly helped with that over the last decade or so. (Though it turns out that one of my mates from the old days in Scotland has moved a few miles from me so we go to gigs again now.)
For me there's a wonderful symmetry to the whole thing.