Guilty Pleasures....

Well said Tboooe. That hits it right on in my view.

As long as you have your priorities right; your family is not wanting; you're saving for your future; you have no debts; and, you have some disposable income left over, then what's the harm. If everything else is taken care of, then why should a person not enjoy some of the pleasures that life has to offer in the short time that we have on this earth. Enjoying life is not something to feel guilty about.

One thing that helps me rationalize the huge expense of this hobby, is that once I get my system to a certain level, I've tended to stay with it for 20 plus years.

So, once you do the math and spread it out, and consider the amount of enjoyment gained, it actually seems pretty cheap.

It also keeps me out of trouble, Audiophilia is awfully tame compared to a great many other things I could be doing with my free time.

Okay, I could have bought a country club golf membership (around here 50k plus 500 bucks a month plus a food charge) and been around my family less with nobody enjoying it but me.. then add food, misc, a cart) but I would rather golf with my friends at the local muni.

I could have bought an exotic car that I could take one family member in who would complain about the wind, the noise, drive it twice a month on Sundays, move my wife's car out of the garage, pay insurance, upkeep, etc.

I could have bought a boat, forced the family to go there every weekend, pay the payments, the slip fees, the barnacle scraping fee, the fuel, the upkeep, etc.

Instead I bought a stereo that my whole family can enjoy, that brings me great joy, that keeps me at home, that uplifts the soul, and satsifies my need to tinker,that is a per piece charge, no monthly maintenance fee (other than bigger electricity bills) that soothes me when I am tired or stressed. If I want to upgrade, I can try it out, I can wait on the finances, I can buy something for 12 dollars and have a new piece of joy for the rest of my life. I can pass along my love of music to my kids, amazingly, one daughter in in three dance clases as a teenager, the other plays cello and drums, wonder if they had done that if I was away playing golf three times a week instead of playing music every night?

All things being equal, I can think of a lot more selfish things to spend money on.

Cheers!
Chris

The one thing I can see that makes this harmful like many other things is we make this hobby and stereo we obsesed about for so many years into our God.

It may take priority in our lives and my be something we think about to much only to spend less time with family and more important things as some of you others have said.

I make myself sick sometimes that I can spend endless dollars on this while theres millions of kids dying yearly due to hunger. I ask myself...am I doing what I can or am I into myself wasting more money on my own little audio world I call my Home theater room.

Yes Dewald, I beat myself up too, cause my life has gone down in some areas since I became a bit obsessed with this. Its funny, but when I look at the issues of my life such as not have the focus and desire to serve my Lord and some other things It all began at the time this audio thing started. I cant serve two Gods!

This has been bothering me too, and I know I can get the balance back into place and still enjoy this hobby.

I can see that this hobby can quite easily become an obsession. Thankfully due to financial contraints, I couldn't get too carried away. After some soul searching, I got to the point that what I had was good enough. I wasn't in a competition with anyone (although I can be pretty competitive), I just wanted a system I could really enjoy listening to music.

I stopped looking to improve my vintage system a year ago. I spent about 10 years in building, upgrading, tweaking. obsessing, etc. The chase is over, I don't move stuff around, I don't try to tweak more info out of it. I just listen to it and enjoy. I do spend some time and effort in building up my music collection, but thats about it.

If in my local travels if I find a nice peice of equiptment at a giveaway price, I buy it and sell it to recoup some of my previous audio expenses. I think I have finally found some balance in my audio life.