How serious are you?

@mapman 

Great to hear you are thinking of retiring. I have been lucky to have many interests and over my career have been able to take off a year or more four times to just pursue my passions… physical and intellectual. So, my interests instantly take over all my time.

The way you put the idea you were thinking of retiring and then decide what to do. You might consider slowly moving into retirement and developing other pursuits along the way. I know a lot of retired folks and those that just quit without a bunch of passions can have a hard time. The rule of thumb is it takes five years to adjust to retirement. My transition was really easy for the reasons I said… but there was still a transition from being so goal oriented (by conditioning all my life) to being more process oriented. 

@ghdprentice & ​​@mapman ...Having been ’semi-retired’ since 1/1/23 from self-employment, immediate results, other than a glacial shift in activities in my case, is just about one can expect....

Ideally, one can concentrate more on the stuff that wants to be done for home, hearth, common interests of your relationship, or just the fun b.s. you’ve put off endlessly....;)

BUT...no ’mike drop’, nooo....

It’s nice/annoying to get interrupted for the Greater Good.....which is still subject to ’discussions’.... *no applicable emoji*

One just has to ’roll with it’....SOS, just a different ’bun’....*L*

Retirement can be fun....

No stress to make the payments...

I am more rich than when working...

But i felt depressed few years , loosing dozens and dozens of young friends whom with i discussed all day...

Now it is bicylcle, reading, and music...Walking ...sleeping... 😊

I will upgrade my Sansui alpha even if it is not necessary , call that foolishness, , fingers crossings, .....My end game system is near...

Instead of how much someone has spent on gear, I base how serious a fellow audiophile is based on:

Dedicated room?

Dedicated line?

Meticulous setup?

Sit motionless in the sweet spot, with eyes closed?

No distractions, nothing but listening.

For me, that defines serious.

Just my 2c.

I'm an 8 in that I won't spend multi thousands on gear. I want excellent sound and  build speaker kits. You will now see ads for the 521 Linkwitz speakers. They are remarkable. You can build them inexpensively. To save time and $, just build the top section and use someone elses subwoofer kits. I did build the recommended woofer sections ($1200 just for the drivers). But they overpowered the room. I built the Linkwitz XLminis and the older Pluto models as well. Highly recommenced. Use a miniDSP two into four stereo crossovers (Madisound) and eight channels of amps - one per driver. Starke 4 cHannel power amps make it easy and economical. I have seven of them in multiple systems. Now, the have an eight channel amp, I'll get one in the fall) ideal for the XL521 (the name comes from the date Dr. Linkwitz found the perfect shape for the baffle holding the mid - tweet - super bidirectional tweeters - May 21). Happy Listening!