I like the analogy to photography that someone else made.
I've been "serious" about that hobby longer than this one and after buying a lot of bodies, lenses, lighting gear, etc. finally reached a point where I feel like I have everything I need and that it's all good enough. Mind you, I don't shoot with top of the line Canon or Nikon gear where the body alone costs a few thousand dollars. Most of my photographer friends have "better" more expensive bodies and lenses than I do.
My goal is to enjoy myself and to create the best images I can with the gear at hand and not put myself in debt. It's about the experience and making sure I have tools that are good enough to achieve the results I want without spending beyond my means.
I say all that because it gives me hope that I'll get to that point with this hobby. I'm not there yet, I have been continuously trying out new pieces and building multiple systems and would like that to end at some point. I don't think I've spent more than around $3,000 on a single piece and buy most of my gear second hand so that I can sell it without losing much if anything if I decide I like something better.
I've been doing a lot more experimentation lately, moving pieces back and forth from one system to another and trying to find the right synergy between pieces. I really want to experiment with acoustic treatments, but I'm not super handy and have some space challenges, but I think that's the next direction for me.
I doubt that I'll ever get to the point where my system is better than anything else I've ever heard, but I'm at a point now where I've only heard a handful of systems that sound better and more importantly, it sounds better to me than I could have previously imagined.
I hope I can apply the ethos of doing more with "less" (in terms of expenditures) I have with photography to this hobby as well and arrive at a point where the upgrades will be few and far between.
To sum up, I think I'm a little bit of both #1 and #2 in the OP - I buy a lot of stuff, but it's in the pursuit of finding out whether different pieces can have a substantial impact (they can!) and to better understand what I like and what fits in best with my system.
I've been "serious" about that hobby longer than this one and after buying a lot of bodies, lenses, lighting gear, etc. finally reached a point where I feel like I have everything I need and that it's all good enough. Mind you, I don't shoot with top of the line Canon or Nikon gear where the body alone costs a few thousand dollars. Most of my photographer friends have "better" more expensive bodies and lenses than I do.
My goal is to enjoy myself and to create the best images I can with the gear at hand and not put myself in debt. It's about the experience and making sure I have tools that are good enough to achieve the results I want without spending beyond my means.
I say all that because it gives me hope that I'll get to that point with this hobby. I'm not there yet, I have been continuously trying out new pieces and building multiple systems and would like that to end at some point. I don't think I've spent more than around $3,000 on a single piece and buy most of my gear second hand so that I can sell it without losing much if anything if I decide I like something better.
I've been doing a lot more experimentation lately, moving pieces back and forth from one system to another and trying to find the right synergy between pieces. I really want to experiment with acoustic treatments, but I'm not super handy and have some space challenges, but I think that's the next direction for me.
I doubt that I'll ever get to the point where my system is better than anything else I've ever heard, but I'm at a point now where I've only heard a handful of systems that sound better and more importantly, it sounds better to me than I could have previously imagined.
I hope I can apply the ethos of doing more with "less" (in terms of expenditures) I have with photography to this hobby as well and arrive at a point where the upgrades will be few and far between.
To sum up, I think I'm a little bit of both #1 and #2 in the OP - I buy a lot of stuff, but it's in the pursuit of finding out whether different pieces can have a substantial impact (they can!) and to better understand what I like and what fits in best with my system.