It is never bonkers to spend your own money on what you personally want, be that unused sports cars collecting dust in a barn, or expensive bits of copper wire dipped in unobtainium. If you like it, for whatever reason unfathomable to others, buy it.
It is bonkers to spend your dependants money on what you want and ignore their needs. So for me I would never have spent the amount I now can while my kids were at home, I could only spend my limited income once. Now with only my wife and myself to support the numbers change. As we both become older those numbers change again.
Also it’s worth remembering that value judgements can change very significantly depending on circumstances. Some years ago my wife and I went through a very bad patch where we struggled to pay regular household bills. In those circumstances anything beyond the most rudimentary music system to me became bonkers. On the other hand we have been at the other end of the scale where we had vastly more money than we needed and in those circumstances one simply buys what one wants without really considering if it’s really ‘worth it’. So yes - it’s all relative and fluid. There really are no rules or guidelines.
You are so right; the world is going the wrong way, with both massive wealth and poverty increasing. With the price of fuel hitting crazy levels, an average price cap of £3,850 expected for January, can anyone justify £4,000 on a single cable? Of course they can if they earn pots of money. A £4,000 cable is the same to one person as a £5 one is to another. Cars, watches, shoes, designer suits, it’s all the same. Is any of it bonkers? Is none of it bonkers? And who makes the judgement?
Well of course we all make the judgement. If one is reasonably well off, then as you get older you have a clear choice of spend it yourself or pass it on to the next generation. Someone once said to us “Travel first class or your children will.” My neighbour next door is more blunt “Spend it ourselves or our son will piss it up against a wall.” The idea is the same though.
I don’t do a lot of travelling in any class these days, but I do sometimes use business class for work trips so I can use fast track to avoid the queues and the lounges to sit more comfortably while I wait for the delays to play out, even though I can only claim back the tourist fares from the company. It’s money well spent mostly.
Every hobby has it’s snake oil, sure, but I’d hazard a guess that few more so than ‘audiophilia’. You can buy a boat/motorcycle/car which is faster or more interesting or louder or prettier or with better provenance. Or a restored classic.
There are diamonds which are higher carat or coloured, or beautifully shaped. They generally hold value and (obviously) will last generations.
But spending £3000k on a USB cable, the benefits of which are totally untested, unproven and likely complete and utter nonsense when compared with a £30 one…? It is bonkers. It’s totally bonkers.
Spending that much on cables or isolation stands or other HiFi fluff which is almost certainly doing nothing except providing a cooling-mist for audiophile neurosis (but how can I have £10,000 speakers without £3000 cables?!) is ridiculous in the extreme, whichever way one looks at it. There are few sub-segments of a hobby so utterly devoid of financial reason than this.
The important thing is, is it worth it to you? Personally, I wouldn’t spend more than around £40 on a pair of interconnects, mainly because I doubt I’d notice the difference. I am more than happy with my Van Dammes with their Neutrik terminals.
I am sure that many people would think having four Nak cassette decks and three Tascam DAT decks is several decks too far, but it’s down to what you as an individual like and want.
Some years ago I read an interview in one of the Hi-Fi mags with someone who had a very expensive high end system. He also had a Nak Dragon, which he used for making tapes for his car!
When I upgraded my system last year my wife was shocked by the cost. I told her that it was only costing 60% of the invoiced amounts as it reduced future inheritance tax! Although true she still didn’t buy it.
I’ve had vaguely similar: free spending though limited income when first started working, still living at home (= ought lots of music, and first system upgrades. After I left home money became tight, then extremely tight (mortgage rates!!) then back to tight, then more relaxed. Eventually we were able to spend quite freely on things we (my wife and I) liked, and also to some extent on what I alone liked. (All within limits, but I happily spent £15k or more on hifi over a just a couple of years, and also spent on other hobbies.)
However, wanting whatever I buy to be good value for money is instilled in my psyche and is a consideration whatever the cost, weighing up cost against what we/I get from it. Whilst I am prepared to have the occasional ‘punt’ on something of uncertain, that os limited to maybe a couple of £hundred, and infrequent.
Will soon have spent almost 6 grand on SL speaker cable and IC’s for a fairly modest system (CD5XS/nDAC in to XPSDR/282/250DR/NAPSC/HCDR) but look at it in terms of economies of scale no matter what upgrades come these cables will always be good enough
Yes @anon33182107 I had gone from a source to speakers Linn system to a $400 Onkyo micro system overnight. Circumstances changed and I was scraping by for a few years. I honestly, at the time, couldn’t fathom ever owning proper hi-fi again. It seemed out of reach and I didn’t look at a hi-fi magazine, or website for over 10 years.
When push comes to shove the hifi would be the last thing to go: Even when we had to sell our house to get out of debt, the hifi stayed. - by then I had my precious IMF TLS50s, and nothing would part me from them. Playing music was more important to me than the house it was in - we moved to another, cheaper house to pay off the mounting debts. Later, through another crisis the hifi stayed, but very little else.
Well, I don’t want to get into politics, given the current state of affairs and the rules of the forum in which I write right now, but from the history of the last 5 centuries it doesn’t seem at all clear, but it seems rather that the state of injustice of the world could well be summed up as ‘everything that a few of us have too much is at the expense of what a majority they have less.’ Finally, the socio-economic system has never ceased to be, until now, a zero-sum multi-person game.
Sure I see your point and it’s valid but a fraught topic so we can’t go there. But ill gotten gains is one thing we cannot assume for everyone spending a gazillion bucks on a USB cable. So the default assumption is still, they aren’t spending your money IMHO.
I do wonder if these companies price their top products at bonkers prices knowing perfectly well no-one will buy them, but to help set a perception that a lower cost option is justifiable, even though it too is bonkers.
Perhaps a $3000 USB cable doesn’t seem quite as bonkers if there is a $6000 option as well.
