i think question 2 (what's the retail value ratio of your software collection vs. your equipment?) is far more important than question 1 ( at what ratio do you spend -monthly, yearly, etc.- for software vs. hardware). the former measures a lifetime's experience, while the latter mere "current trends." like garfish, i tend to buy in binges. in the last 30 days, i've bought about 50 cd's and have been given 30 or 40 more by my older son (he's a consultant to fm radio stations). that's way more than an average month's purchase of software, which usually runs 5-10 pieces. the only hardware purchased in the last 30 days was on my nascent video sytem, a loewe aconda 16:9 crt. my audio only system is worth quite a bit at retail, but so is my music collection, which includes around 1,500 "collectable," and 3,500 other lp's and somewhere between 1,500-2,000 cd's. based on "replacement cost" values, i'd guess my audio hardware's worth about 125% of the value of my software. this represents >30 years' experience in this hobby. -kelly
Audiophile spending
We all say it’s about the music, but when a recent post came up and asked how much do you spend on equipment vs music I did an actual check and found that I spend about 2/3 equipment and 1/3 music. There were some interesting comments in that thread, one said that he would not increase his music spending rate, because he could not find time to listen to more material than he was already buying, but that his equipment rate of spending continued to increase. It’s also interesting that the rate of spending might not correlate to the value of the equipment vs the value of the music since we audiophiles tend to sell off our used equipment as we upgrade, but probably don’t sell off our music (at least I don’t, of course some do—there is used music for sale on Agon) So the questions to this post are:
1. What is the ratio of your spending rate on equipment vs music
2. What is the ratio of the value of your system (retail) vs your music (retail or fair market for collectibles)
3. Is your spending on music limited by the time you have available to listen to music or by budget
There's no need to post dollar amounts (you can if you want--but it's really a matter of what gets spent in relative terms)
1. What is the ratio of your spending rate on equipment vs music
2. What is the ratio of the value of your system (retail) vs your music (retail or fair market for collectibles)
3. Is your spending on music limited by the time you have available to listen to music or by budget
There's no need to post dollar amounts (you can if you want--but it's really a matter of what gets spent in relative terms)