How much gear do you own?

@rosco88 ,

Great post.

"Definitely, you really need help as I have heard that its a serious compulsive disorder."

There is a funny side to this, but it can be tragic as well.

My dad had (still probably has, but just can't maintain it like before?) serious hoarding issues and it caused a lot of family stress.

His was an extreme case, but I've seen this problem far too often to realise it's fairly common. I've seen houses where it's impossible to actually walk in a straight line in any of the rooms. Where virtually every flat surface has been used as a shelf or a table

If I could have, I'd probably have filled all of my living space with books (as some people have). I guess I've been relatively saved by family commitments.

In fact only today I read something relevant in Rolf Dobelli's excellent (reference) book, The Art of Thinking Clearly.

He stresses the importance of letting things go, and advises looking at possessions as things the universe has merely lent you.

Things it might one day take back without warning.

This, to me, seems like a sensible way of looking at things and it doesn't even really matter whether I like it or not. 

The matter ultimately is not in my hands.

It never was.

I grew up in a military family and we moved every couple of years so I was brought up to either use it or lose it.Over the years I somewhat stayed from that and I had some gear that was to old or worn to bother with selling but still had some value so I have been donating it to a modest brick and mortar audio store as I would love to see them  survive . 

While I have bought and sold a bunch of stuff over the years I currently have a turntable, preamp/DAC, amp, streamer/music server, and a set of speakers. Also the cables to put it all together.

While I spent a boat load of cash on a high end TT - I find I do not use it as much as I thought I would and I am considering selling it to a good home. Will stick with the remaining gear for the long hall.

I figured I wasn't alone in my misery.  😉

I live with just my teenage son in a house so I haven't been blessed with the more intelligent of us giving proper guidance on what toys not to buy.  Or questioning why certain rooms and closets have foregone their intended purposes to house audio gear.

I probably have over 3k records and have listened to maybe 20 records this whole year.  And yet I can't bring myself to letting them go.  99.9% of my music listening at home is streaming.

Just the stuff I have is too much.  Oh, when I got out of audio a decade back I got into electric basses with the same devout fervor that I applied to electronics and ended up with, like, 40 or so basses.  I've sold a bunch but still need to dump 25 or so.  And yes, I suck at playing bass.  And no, I was never in a band.

I sometimes wish I'd get burglarized.  But with my luck they'd just take the big screens and a few Bose speakers as all my other gear wouldn't have name recognition to your average thief.