I think this hobby has a pretty good bang for the buck factor provided one doesn't do anything stupid, like buying the $10,000 pre amp that just showed up on the cover of Sterophile at full retail. If you buy used and let the other guy take the depreciation hit you can sell it for close to the same price years later. So the net investment isn't too bad, although it's not very liquid these day.
This is a silly hobby.
So, I bought honey a new laptop Friday night. Lots of memory and a big hard-drive, $534. Then I remembered that I'd also ordered a new pair of speaker cables, $578. Just in terms of relative usefulness this seems absurd. Needless to say, I won't be explaining this to my tolerant yet incredulous wife.
I'm just sayin'.
I'm just sayin'.