There is an old barb in sporting circles to describe a certain type of sports enthusiast - all the gear and no idea. It describes those people who go out and buy the best professional level sports gear as they are more obsessed with the gear than learning how to use it and doing the hard work of training. I see the same in photography, a lot of people have a hobby of cameras and lenses etc but really aren't very good photographers. Many really excellent amateur sports people and photographers use quite modest or mid-level equipment as they just want something that serves their needs and see no reason to spend a kings ransom on the best of gear. I think audio is the same, some are into audio equipment to maximise their enjoyment of music, others are just obsessed with equipment. Some buy a piece of equipment and unless it breaks will enjoy it for a long time, others are buying new stuff constantly (I've been guilty of that myself in my audiophool days). As I've already said, to me audio gear is a tool, not an end. That is not an argument that audio equipment doesn't matter, or that anything will do, as a tool has to be fit for its intended purpose. However what I would say is that if you look at audio gear from that perspective then it can be quite remarkable just how well a lot of modest gear performs and you really do not need to spend a fortune on gear. Well, at least not the source, DAC and amp, good speakers still need a bit of thought but even there room placement and correction can count for much and a well set up pair of good modest speakers can perform extremely well. Now if people want to spend a lot of high end gear that's fine, we all want to spend money as we decide and people do like nice made things, good industrial design and lets be honest in admitting that pleasure of ownership does count for something. And some expensive gear really is superbly designed and made (even if in audible terms the resulting difference in sonic signature is marginal). So I have no issue with anybody spending their money however they like, if people have a hobby of buying and fiddling with audio equipment then that's their right, just as it is mine to decide that if equipment facilitates my enjoyment of music without making me feel the equipment is affecting that enjoyment then I see no necessity to spend any more (although I'll admit I do like nice headphones and still have a hankering for certain expensive gear just because I like it). What I do hate is all the hyperbole we see about night and day differences, lifting of veils, moving people two rows forward blah blah blah and the supercilious sneering at modest gear we see in certain parts of the audio hobby to inflate high end sales.