How important is spending time with your gear?

@painter24 

I read your OP, paused to digest, and then felt disturbingly uneasy at the thought of it. Gave me an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I think I need help 😜

You're not the only one!

In a perfect world I wouldn't need any of the equipment to be visible, just a blank area where I could organise my imagination, but I entirely get the point made by @audioguy85.

"I just love gazing over at my technics direct drive with strobe illuminated in a dimly lit room. Also, peering at my tannoys with their beautiful bespoke wood finish, or watching my vacuum fluorescent VU meters on my vintage 3 head Aiwa tape deck doing their dance..."

Sonic beauty and visual beauty obviously do not have to be mutually exclusive.

Naughty Erik, making us think in such abstracts.

It brings a touch of pride to see , two channels’ gears. When it is well done.

But for a home theater system , the less you see , the better it is.

My goal is to have nothing in front of me but amp and speakers.  The gear will be close by,but not in my line of sight.   Ultimately,I would like to have all gear but amp and speakers in the closet in my listening room.  

I am pretty much indifferent.  I would not mind at all if the gear were in another room (I would actually be glad if I had such an extra room, just for the sake of more room).  I don't care about the looks of the gear and don't need their presence.  I had my monobloc amps facing the wrong way in the middle of the room just because that was more convenient than having the amps face in the proper direction (the power switch is on the back of the amps).

I take good care of my stuff. My stuff is good

looking and I want to look at my stuff.