New Music vs. New Equipment

This question pretty interesting. It made me check what my actual expenses of equipment vs software is. I expected to be about 50/50 or slightly infavor of software over equipment. Fact is, it's not, I've spent nearly 2/3 in equipment. I've been buying a lot of albums and CDs in the last year, so this was a bit of a shock. I can't answer your question for you--only you can do that. But the question did make me look at my expenses, and I will probably be reducing my equipment expenses now.

Like Abstract7, my spending has thus far been ~2/3 on equipment. This scenario is out of line with my way of thinking and exists only because last year was "The Year of the Great Upgrade." The intention now is to bring them on par. So, if I were going to spend $2,500 today it'd be on new music. A car without gas is a hunk of metal; a gun without bullets serves little purpose; a great sound system is nothing without music. Buy the tunes!

The way I look at it is there is no problem with your expenditure on gear being much higher than on software, and that it is not necessarily a trade-off decision. Over the last 20 years my income and stereo have improved a lot, but the rate at which I buy software has not. I have always bought somewhere between one and two albums a week. Realistically, buying at any greater rate is silly - unless you are a collector or if you have a lot of time to listen to music. I don't believe you can do justice to your software purchases if you try to consume at a faster rate than this. You could of course buy three or four a week and discard two or three after the third listen, but that is still maybe six hours or more of listening on the discarded ones, let alone the one or two you keep, let alone the albums you bought the week before that, and the week before that, etc. So my point is that I reckon you should be setting your level of consumption in line with how much time you have to listen and how much you like to explore new albums as opposed to your existing collection. If what money is left over only allows you to buy a $5,000 system, then so be it. But if what is left over allows you a $100,000 system then so be it too - no need to waste money on albums you will never do justice to.

redkiwi, i couldn't agree more. i can't think of a time in my 30+ years in this hobby when i've ever been faced with a decision such as that posed by onhwy61. indeed, tho i've sometimes spent several hundreds of USD on software at a time, i've never purchased anything like 1000 or 2500 UDS' worth in one fell swoop. my purchases of equipment demand very different considerations from my software purchases. but for collector lps, of which i own many, my software is close to being disposable. i certainly can't say that of my hardware. in my experience, when i've upgraded my system in a major way, i'm driven not only to play my favorite recordinds but to buy more than usual. if you stick with this hobby for as long as i have, you will eventually assemble a sizable software collection buying as does redkiwi and do i.