That’s a very individual question. When LP’s were going to be “” no longer available" I bought a lot of them only to discover they were then re-issued on CD in spades. This got me to about 4000 of them!
I think I must be nudging a similar number of CD’s and still in the market for more! Yes I own more than one copy of an album, or Amazon says “you bought this last 00/00/00”.
It all comes down to look in you wardrobe. 80% of the clothes may never be worn. Or think of my cousin. Into railway memorabilia. He has bought the same book more than once.
Interesting that you ask the question now, I have decided a few days ago that my +/- 1,350 albums (50/50 CDs and vinyl) were enough at this stage of my life. How long I can last for is another question!
It appears that collecting music for some is a hobby in itself and not just with a view to listening to the collection with any kind of regularity.
Contributors to this thread with huge collections, by their own admission, could never listen to their collection in its entirety. So such collecting behaviour must be motivated by something more than the intention to appreciate the content of an album on an ongoing basis.
There must of course have been an attraction to an album in the first instance to have provoked a purchase. That attraction could have been the music itself or possibly some other compulsion. Maybe to own more of an artist’s repertoire, maybe the album artwork, maybe glowing reviews or some link to that artist or album in the distant past. It could be that a music purchase has a very short ‘lifespan’ in the owner’s collection, listened to a few times and then forgotten, but not sold on.
I am only guessing here, but there seems to be more than just music appreciation that motivates some to amass such enormous collections.
I would say that to me 1095 albums would be enough and that is about what I have at the moment – 2.8m of vinyl (rest are CDs ripped into a NAS plus some odd downloaded items). However, I am still buying (vinyl that is) …
I think NigelB has alluded to something which has happened to me. Having a mere 926 cds, I find myself not just wanting to have more of an artists repertoire, but to complete their discographies. For example, I have 41 Bob Dylan cds, so I might as well go for the whole lot. Same with Lou Reed, Neil Young etc. I think I have become a collector.
Having said that, I still enjoy the discovery of new music, and with the very low price of cds, I am buying them like they are going out of fashion.
I know exactly what you mean! The completist in me finds it hard to resist, until I read of people who acquire not only the listed studio albums of an artist, but also every live recording, every compilation, and every re-release or remaster (not to mention every bootleg!).
Some years ago, maybe 20, i was buying a lot of lps. But i was regularly selling the albums i was not listening to.
Today i buy only an album,or track, if i am sure i will enjoy a lot. So around 5 or 6 albums per month.
That is an interesting statement. Whilst I recognise that it may be true for a very small collection, say measured in 10s, I struggle to see it once a collection is in the many 100s, though obviously the transition point would vary from individual to individual. However, having said that I should qualify it by saying it is based on the assumption that a coolection as assembled from music people really like and want to keep, and not just through buying for some other reason.
Of course what may be of significance in my own approach is that for many years I syptruggled to afford to buy all the music I liked, and so had to make every purchase count, through that perhaps learning to be discerning, making my own collection one that I would always want to play and so never bore me. Others will have had different lijpfe experiences, and different approaches to music buying.
I recently passed the 3,500 CD mark. Way back in the 80s I foolishly sold off my entire collection of vinyl, accumulated since 1966 (about 750 or thereabouts), when I sold my hifi to fund marriage and house purchase. I bought 50 or so ‘best of’ CDs and this was all I played on my Technics system for the next 20 years or so. In the early noughties I acquired a nice Teac and Kef system, which rekindled my interest in music, and saw the start of the replacement of my original vinyl collection with CD versions. By 2014 I’d achieved my aim, and increased my collection to just shy of 1,500 albums.
I then made my initial foray into the world of Naim! My enjoyment of music transformed into love (my wife would say obsession), and my acquisition of albums increased at an exponential rate. So, I’ve added approx. 2,000 albums to my collection in 5 years, which works out to about 35-40 a month on average. The last few months have seen a slowing down, and I now average no more than 10 new recordings per month (the majority prompted by what I read in threads on this forum!).
Is it too many! Is my collection too large! Who knows. There are, without doubt, some that I will probably never listen to again, but then again, I just might! What harm are they doing, provided I have the storage space in the boarded, lit and heated eaves of my house (room for at least twice as many again). At worst they’ll simply go to the local charity shops, or plastic recycling when my kids inherit my possessions. Until then I’m quite content to continue to add to my collection. Everything is ripped and well catalogued, available to browse and select in a matter of moments.
Answer to the OP’s original question? There will never be ‘enough’ so long as there are good albums I haven’t yet heard, good bands producing good new stuff and good new bands and artists coming on to the scene. Happy Days!
everyday i am discovering new albums, on qobuz, itunes, tidal, allmusic…but i really enjoy a very few of these. I buy around 5 or 6 albums per month, after having listened to perhaps 150 or 200 in the same period. Some months, but rarely, i can find perhaps 15 which i will buy. Other months sometimes only 3.
When having every version of every album becomes a necessity then you become a collector in the world where I exist!! Having every matrix variation of every version of every album is also a challenge some good friends of mine partake in!
For me having every album of a band or artist you enjoy is very normal and nothing out of the ordinarty BUT I have been heavily involved in the scene mentioned above and sell music related stuff most days to help other collectors whilst trying to downsize my own collection!
Do the people who collect this heavily listen to the stuff they buy, of course not. They catalogue it and store it. Most love the band and will move heaven and earth to travel the globe to see them though. We only need one (the best sounding of course) copy of every album to actually listen to!
An alternative take on the thread maybe but a world that very much exists. A very close friend of mine has almost 3000 officially released CD’s by that one band!
I am not in the business of saying one should only collect music/albums to appreciate the content (i.e. actually listen) on an ongoing basis. There are other perfectly worthy reasons to amass a collection of albums. But having only collected music myself, admittedly in a haphazard way in the early days, with the intention of actually listening to great music forever, I find these other motivations to collect (or should I say, amass) music rather intriguing and thought-provoking.
Someone said earlier in the thread words to the effect that music can be bought at such little cost, why not indulge in say collecting everything by your favourite artists. A bit like collecting footie cards when you were a lad. And that is a refreshing and perfectly reasonable motivation, and one that never entered my mind.
I started this thread on a rather nebulous query in my mind. But it is proving to be a real eye-opener, well for me anyway.
Oh, dear Lord!!! I hope I never get that obsessive about anything. I’m happy to just be an ordinary minor collector. But each to their own. I am sure your friend is happy with 3k+ collection from one band, and I’ll bet that band is happy with him.
Which begs the question, when does healthy collector mentality tip over to obsession?
The same question can be posed for upgrading your system, although that is a different scenario, I would accept, but possibly involves similar human psychological emotions/motivations.
Any psychologists out there who might have view on this?
i love for instance Miles Davis. But do i have several versions of an album of him: no
Do i own all miles davis albums: no. I have maybe 15, for probably 200 albums in his career.
I am not a collector and i am restrictive in my choices.
But it’s just me. I can easily understand all different manners to own or collect music, or even buy by impulsivity. Each person is different.
I am not a shrink, but I realize that some of us…, including myself are mentally ill. I however prefer this type of illness above some of the other potential mental disfunctions …
@BertBird, I have obsessive traits, particularly when it comes to HiFi. I occasionally shudder when I think the level of care an attention I have ‘invested’ in getting the set up of my system just right. Occasionally I have a rather tough conversation with myself to try to maintain some balance and a sense of proportion about the effort and expense I put in to music in the home.
Whether this kind of obsessive behaviour can be considered as a mental illness, I am not qualified to say. But I am fairly certain that this kind of behaviour is commonplace, particularly among forumites.
I was about to start a thread about this on my own. Seems like you beat me by a couple of weeks
The question is one that goes back several years, when one of the salesmen at my local Naim dealer asked my just that. My first thought was “as many albums as possible”. Before I could open my mouth, he suggested 365, one for every day. That shut me up for the day.
Returning home I took a good look at all my albums and what they mean as a collection and individually. It didn’t take me long to realize that I’m not a collector but a listener. If I have five or six albums from the same artist but only listen to two of them, the others can go. If they return some money to buy new music, even better.
Now I’d say that a collection of 300 to 500 albums should be sufficient. One important caveat though: they would be the essence of a much bigger number of albums owned. That number would be somewhere between 1500 and 2000.
