Definitely an addiction for me.
Though it's changed over the years and almost gone full circle.
As a kid the addiction was for old used kit, big receivers, flashy amps, ways to mould the sound etc. For a few decades it morphed into tweakery and following fads but now I'm headed back to enjoying things as I did in my teens.
They say we live and learn
I very much agree... we live and learn.
I started out in HiFi, interested in collecting mainly classical music on vinyl, although I did collect quite a lot of the contemporary music of the time on vinyl as well, and the gear was very much secondary to that interest - being able to listen to recorded music of high quality, in the home.
After several 'upgrades' of individual items, I ended up with a Thorens TD125 Mk II/SME 3009/Shure V15III combo, Rait amp (copy of a Radford) and B&W DM2a's.
During the near twenty years I had that setup, my record collection grew substantially, but there was never any thought of swapping out the kit for something else - I was very satisfied.
The arrival of CD changed all that, and I had to change with it to be able to continue my collection of music. A Naim CDI was the CD player that I heard at the time that came the closest to my TT in terms of freedom from a harsh, or brittle sound, which seemed to typify so many early CD players and discs, and so, duly purchased, a full Naim setup followed, to match so to speak.
I was very happy with it for a number of years, but then for whatever reason, perhaps magazines, perhaps internet forums sowing dis-content, I started to tweak, and found I became quite obsessive about warming up rituals, cable dressing rituals and so on, such that the kit became more important than the music, and I ended up spending more time listening to what the kit was doing with the music, than the music itself.
The arrival of, and my interest in AV in the home, became another addition to the system in terms of hardware, and one that along with the growing frustration at all the seemingly necessary obsessive system tweaking, ultimately led me in another direction as regards source and amplifier brands.
I've recently moved further again with computer audio sources, Bluray for movies, and now a new, fully integrated AV system, that some would dismiss as being 'lifestyle', but certainly do feel as if I've come full circle, as the tweaking, and importantly the feeling of the need to tweak and obsess has departed, and I have finally a level of ownership satisfaction and contentment that I first experienced with that Thorens/SME/Shure/Rait/B&W system all those decades ago.
So yes, one does indeed live and learn...
JB
