For me it's just wanting to experience more and understand as much as possible.

It started as just a love for music, started from my dad and grandpa who always had large floor speakers playing rock throughout my childhood.

Once I got into headphones, the bug to try as many different sound signatures took over and I just wanted to experiment with headphones. Over time looking more into EQ, reading papers, experimenting with measurments.

It's a fun hobby that kept me occupied throughout covid, and the drive to learn and experience more is still there

I just like new shinny things to make the air wiggle in different ways.

Enjoyment of music caused listening to it nearly every waking hour, it was inevitable I'd care about how it's being reproduced at some point.

That's so cool! Thank you for sharing!

I too am a quarantine created audiophile as I bought my HD58X during that time.

Wiggly air is the best air.

Literally just came home from my first concert since the pandemic started, and my brain is swimming in a sea of dopamine all over again. Having the sound waves move air against my body is still a really thrilling experience, no matter how many times I've enjoyed it.

So for now, this hobby is a facsimile hold-over, to get as close to that, without the cops knocking on my door - until the next show. :)

You have a favorite song and listen to that song over and over again. You wish you could experience hearing it again for the first time. Chasing new audio equipment lets you hear your favorite music in a completely new context and it's the next best thing to a mind wipe.

My friend, that's what I'm talking about!! Concerts have a special place in my heart too. So happy you had a good experience out there tonight!!

A stress reliever to focus on something that doesn't relate to the difficulties of life. And I love music.

Me, i capture the moment w the music. So when I heard that piece of music I re-live the moment. Its a weird thing to say out loud as I do a bit of photography. Looking at photos I re-experience not re-live that frame of life, cuz my brain didn't make the connection w the music.

Those tingles in my ear

I agree. Music is 100% the best drug.

Many tingles, much happy chemical.

There are a few people who tend to get obsessive about the equipment and want to try all of it that they can afford; I suspect fear of missing is a primary motivation there.

Then, we've got the confidence artist who fool the less knowledgeable into believing all sorts of lies in order to enrich themselves. And, this drives people to acquire more and more equipment that doesn't actually enhance their listening experience.

For me, the music is the obsession - Ex. I've downloaded at least 10 new albums and DJ mixes in the last week alone.

I did go through a period of auditioning every music playback and server application I could find - I'm a software engineer and, of course, that fascinates me. I wasn't chasing sound quality, though. Why would I when all of that software presented a bit perfect, if I wanted, data stream to my DAC? Rather, I was after the best user experience for my needs. I found Logitech Media Server to be the best solution for me, just in case anyone is curious.

Back to the equipment, I settled on that ~5 years ago when I was doing a refresh and my systems will remain the same for at least a decade as a result. I've four in total: 2x speaker based, and 2x IEM based.

Sure, I still regularly read about new equipment; almost daily, in fact. However, I've no desire to purchase any in the foreseeable future, as I shopped right the first time and I wouldn't gain anything in terms of fidelity by doing so.

If I wish to experience a different sonic signature, DSP is a miracle worker on that front.

Thank you for sharing! I hope so day I can achieve that sort of contentedness tha5 you've found in your setups.

I am curious what your speaker setups look like, if you're willing to share.

Why do we spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on any hobby?

I enjoy music - pretty much always have something over, or in my ears. Figured I may as well squeeze the most enjoyment out of whatever I'm listening to... and here I am!

Enjoying music. Mixing and matching is enjoying music but almost for the first time again, for better or sometimes worse.

Oh, it's nothing special. I've got 2 pairs of bookshelf speakers from the last Infinity Reference series, aka "Baby Revel's", and inexpensive, but transparent, Class D amplifiers. One is used in an AV setup, although mostly for music, and the other for a desktop system.

People refer to the last Infinity Reference series as Baby Revel's because, both Infinity and Revel are owned by Harmon International, and they share design philosophy and technology to a certain extent.

One, the Infinity Reference 162, is comparable in performance to the Revel M16. They just can't play as loud as the latter without audibly distorting. However, they're clean up to ~85 dB and I never, ever play them that loud under normal circumstances.

The other, the Infinity Reference 152, which I use for my desktop, is comparable in performance to the Revel M105, with the same limitations as I've mentioned for the 162.

Both pairs are frequency response corrected and tuned to my listening environment via DSP.

All the best... 😎

Just like people who definitely dont need new stylish shoes or clothes we like new shiny things haha.

And lets be honest with eachother, we love when we see some airpods or beats walking around and our brain goes " you know nothing"

I dont do drugs, so this is the closest thing. not to mention you gain more than you lose

Music reaches far beyond the rationale of the human mind, hence it's predominance in all cultures around the globe. We justify investing in music enjoyment because it's so effective on our mood, our productivity, our happiness. Plus we're in a consumerist ultra capitalist society so that helps a lot

I just feel very empty sometimes (I regret going to university after having worked full time, now I have nothing relevant to do and uni feels like a huge waste of time) and music makes me feel a little less empty so I won't lose it while writing papers and such.

But the magic for me is not spending thousands, 6XX are enough for me and I have tried HD800's multiple times for more than just a few minutes. I like my 6XX more. Now everything is about music. I have 10TB of music in flac format (I keep a backup for a friend in case his stuff ever breaks), more than 300k tracks from old classics to music that came out in like 2010ish and it's a lot of fun to go through all kinds of genres and I also add more and more to the collection over time.

So for me it's more about the music, but the 6XX definitely contribute to that. They sound so natural, everything is just right, nothing feels bloated or unrealistic and that makes me appreciate a lot of music I never listened to before I got them.

With the ride of global warming, I'm doing my part to make wiggley air.

Why do people spend so much and why do people keep coming back. Honestly for most people, it's because DankPods keeps uploading.

Speak for yourself- I’m not spending that much lol

Mental illness

Yes, but only if it wiggles in just the right way

I still want to try that headphone! More than I want to try the 600 series actually.

Wait for a black Friday sale or get it used bc it's an absolute unit of a headphone. I love mine and I'll never sell it

It's a lot of things honestly. The most obvious is the ability to completely get lost in a musical space. My belief is that the best gear gets out of the way and you forget you have the headphones on. I have a setup that can more or less do this. This is why I stopped (for now at least) climbing deeper into this money-pit hobby. But I do still enjoy nerding out in forums like these and also learning as much as I can about what technologies lend to the best possible acoustic experience.

Can relate. Trying to use music as my therapy. Ranging from billie eilish to lorna shore

First it was just to experience my games and music better

Now it’s just an expensive collection hobby

I like music and headphones provide me with different ways to experience the music that I like. It’s honestly that simple.

Because it’s just a fantastic experience to hear music on nice equipment. One of my most memorable experiences was hearing the studio monitors of a friend. The sound was three dimensional with just two speakers. It just blew my mind, I hadn’t heard anything like it before. After that experience I wanted to have better gear but stayed with headphones because I like the portability.

For me, it is blocking out the sound that pulled me into this hobby. I help people find their choices on r/headphoneadvice, like people helped me.

When you have the option to listen to a full orchestra or to the typical traffic noise that you hear walking in public, the answer is obvious.

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