What do/did you do for a living?


With the increasingly high priced items people own and are selling, I'm curious about the line of work people do or have done. I thought my $5k integrated was a massive investment, but seeing users searching for $100k speakers or $75k SET amplifiers has me curious about the varying lines of work people do to afford these items. 
128x128j-wall

 

zm

118 posts

 

Associate Dean at a top-tier research university.  

3 year update: uh, still an Associate Dean, but now at an Ivy.  I suppose this is progress of a sort.

😂 @re-lar-kvothe 

every Tuesday morning, I have to get the ammonia and bleach mixture juuuuust right. 

I went from handyman, to assembler, to Engineering Failure Analysis, Quality Engineer, Field service, Systems admin, Systems Engineer, Data systems architect, procurement manager, program manager, and Office chief.  Retired from the DoD, so my entire system does not cost 5K.  That is why I use SCIENCE to exclude magic and upgrade things that at least could make a true difference sonically, not just hearing interpretation of what we wish big bucks did. 

Software Engineer.

My first stereo system I owned was after the summer of my junior year in high school. Used my hard earned summer job money to buy a 3 pieces stereo system consisting of a receiver, turntable, and a pair of speakers for around $500+. It was all Pioneer gears. I later added a top of the line Pioneer cassette deck for close to $500. Looking back, I wish I didn’t throw them all away. Would love to have my Pioneer cassette deck.

Since then, I’ve gone through quite a few Home Theatre "do it all" systems, including music in stereo. Like receivers from Yamaha, Sony, and finally Maranzt.

I never considered myself a hobbyist until the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Since then, I’ve spent probably around $50K for speakers, stereo pre-amp, amps, home theatre processor, network streamer/DAC, turntable, cartridges, subwoofer etc... A lot of them were purchased from reading and recommendation of this forum.  They were paid mostly out of my vacation budges since we haven’t travelled since the pandemic.

This is no doubt an expensive hobby, but I guess cheaper than collecting cars 😀

Cheers!