How long do you or should you keep your gear.

then you have the propensity of hunger, they loved to eat tapes, a form of self-canibalism now that I think about it

That is the attribute I mostly think of when 8 track is mentioned. I got pretty good at splicing them using scotch tape. Always worked fine, til it broke elsewhere. I lost a lot of music during that time. But I love driving and listening to music and don't remember any recorder for 8 track. Thank God for cassette. I could buy the vinyl and record to cassette for the car/truck

Out of curiosity, I visited one of the high end retail shops in Denver to listen to Magico speakers.  I am not sure why people in this group brag about them.  They sounded pretty sterile.  They had a pair of Rockports sitting in the same room and they blew the doors off the Magico's.  Their cabinets are gorgeous and the timber from the wood helped make them sound more like instruments.  I guess they should for $60,000 attached to a $60,000 Class A Boulder amplifier and $40,00 speaker wires.  He also demonstrated three DAC's and I didn't realize how much of a difference in sound quality an expensive DAC can change sound quality.  

What impressed me most is they demonstrated Master Set.  I was unable to detect left and right speakers.  The sound projected between the speakers as if there was a large center speaker between the towers.  It helps to hear an obo, French horn and other instruments appear in the space it was recorded.  Wonder why the subject Master Set is never discussed.

i still have my  kenwood kr 9600.  it was my 1st purchase of audio gear out of college .  Still have it and can't wait to hear it drive  the Ohm Walsh 2000 about Feb '22  .   Most recent gear was Rotel 1570 amp  in 2015 . 

Been through both extremes: in my 20s went through decade long period in which many components came and went then i settled on mirage m3 speakers and a system which lasted about 30 years.  This go around I've pretty quickly settled on electronics (hegel 390 and "custom" DAC) and am listening to one of Clayton's Spatial speakers vs one of Walter's LSA floorstanders.

I still love the same type of sound that I first discovered with Dahlquest 10s (open baffle), and Mirage's bipole also found with wide dispersion box speakers (thanks Walter).

Still have a Sansui 7070 that was purchased in 1977. Still works and runs 12 hours a day in my wife's salon. Still using my pioneer pl112D turntable that I received for Christmas from mom and dad in 1974.