How does one get off the merry-go-round?

I am now off the merry go round and after a period of depression I have finally come to terms with it. What I found out about myself was that the process upgrading and swapping out gear was a big part of what I enjoyed about this hobby. I was just as much in love with obtaining the SOTA gear as I was with listening to music. After doing this at a pretty crazy rate for 3 years, I have finally ended up getting all the gear I want. With the upgrade excitement gone, I stopped listening to my system for a few months. It is ironic that after putting together a system supposedly only for the sole purpose of listening to music, I was no longer interested. I found myself buying "audiophile" music that I did not necessarily enjoy but that would make my system sound best. Clearly, I had lost sight of what this whole hobby is all about and got caught up in the process.

Only recently have I gone back to listening and what I re-discovered was my love of music. Growing up, I never cared how much detail I heard, or how wide the soundstage was, or how accurate the timbre was. I just cared that the music touched something in my soul. I am at the point again where I would be happy with a cheap all in one stereo from Best Buy or Circuit City. It has even crossed my mind to sell everything and downgrade to something much cheaper. Dont get me wrong, I am glad I have the system I have but I dont intend on doing any major upgrades. I will probably add a power cord here or there and get an AC conditioner but thats it. So I can confidently say, I have been and will remain off the merry go round (famous last words of an audiophile).

Could it be that materialism creeps in to our love of music a subtle and quiet way, like a thief in the night, slowly robbing us of the vast expanse of an artform. I say BEWARE! Music is so big, so deep, so amazingly profound. Equipment is merely seductive. Come on guys, which would you really choose? Of course the answer is to have both. Right. That's coming from a guy who just spent thousands on an SET amp and made his wife crazy with it. So I am guilty. I could have lived with my $1000 Audio Refinement SS amp and loved it, but no, I had to upgrade. So maybe this is my confessional. However no matter how deep I go I will always love music the same. No $8000 amplifier can make me love music more.

Signed,
An Addict

In the past year, I've pursued a music server solution. I loaded about one-third of my CD collection on the server and then decided to give it a rest and just enjoy. And I've discovered a couple of things about myself:

As expected, I am listening to stuff in my collection that I haven't listened to in years. It's so easy to just give something a try. And I often play the entire library on shuffle while I'm doing other things, so I'm getting re-exposed to stuff. This is very positive.

I've also discovered that I have a lot of music in my collection that I have no interest in listening to, and I can comfortably say that I never will.

In the all-vinyl days, I was more likely than not to listen to an entire album side in one sitting. With CDs and remote control, I've tended to be more selective, which has fueled a sort of ADD behavior of listening to only a few tracks, or skipping to the next if I grow impatient with a particular song. With the music server, I find this ADD pattern is exacerbated. It's like endless channel surfing. It has it's plusses, but on balance I don't like what's become of my relationship to recorded music.

I'm coming to realize that, for pure music enjoyment, my preferred relationship is the radio. I've never played a lot of tapes or CDs in the car because that's when I listen to radio; and that's how I discover new music. I prefer DJ radio, commercials and all, to what I've heard of satellite radio. I like the human connection.

Sonics aside, with Internet radio there are now plenty of good stations within my grasp. If I think about being able to choose between WWOZ, a few classical stations I've found, some college stations, and several others, I begin to wonder what else I need. So long as I could put in a CD of KOB or several dozen other staples when the mood strikes, I'm not sure I need to "own"most the stuff I have. I prefer the never-ending surprise of others' programming choices, the discovery of new stuff, and the re-discovery of old favorites.

So I'm letting this percolate for a while before doing anything rash. But the thought has occurred: sell the entire system and replace it with something better suited to listening to MP3 streams. Sell most of the music collection, too.

Drubin, you put the music on the server in MP-3!!!!!!

What's your reasoning, Tbg?