Definitely a part of it, I had originally gotten a sennheiser pc360 g4me headset (discontinued now I think), as my first gaming headset simply because I wanted both a headset made by an audio company instead of a gaming peripheral one, and that I wanted something higher quality I could use for both gaming AND listening to music. It wasn’t until I discovered Zeos this year though, that I was able to divorce the label of gaming from upgrade paths I was considering.
Ah…i still remember my first Sony walkman back in the early 1980’s, then there were the car stereo years, mixed with (what was then cheap) 60’s and 70’s muscle cars, damn those were great times, i’m happy my ears survived. There were years of military Modeling, and 25mm lead fantasy armies set in epic hand made dioramas with hundreds of hours spent meticulously painting war banners and armor, creating terrain and castles.
Then came the guns, so many many firearms, along with crates of surplus ammunition purchased in excess and stacked high and deep in the darkest corners of the house. There had to be accessories, re-loading supplies and equipment, fine German and Japanese glass, class 3, surplus home built kits, and every once in a while an exotic or better yet relics of years gone by.
During the years of marriage and family making time there were tools…hand tools, power tools, fine tools, tool boxes, yard tools, specialty tools every project big or small needed a tool and there were always projects. These were the years when the home theater bug kicked in and subwoofers of epic proportions had to be deftly installed in the house to be hidden from the glaring eyes of the wife who had to have everything matched and in order. At some point during these years there were also leather boots, leather belts, fine leather gloves and even a few wallets. Mmmm…I love the smell and feel of good leather.
After the divorce came the glorious watches, custom watch straps, knives, carbon fiber road bikes, the luxury sedan, European beachs and girlfriend years. Ah, the women…yes they too were an obsession for a time.
Have a beer with me someday and i’ll even share with you the tale of the first heart attack, it was glorious and had it ended my life would have made for an epic story of death by overindulgence and debauchery…
Oh yeah almost forgot, the 2.1 and headphone bug hit 2 years ago this month…
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Hopefully you don’t go about collecting heart attacks with same zeal you seem to have collected everything else!
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if you have more than 2 it’s a collection…
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Nick, wonderfully told! Thank you for sharing.
One day we need to get that last story from you.
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When I was 15, almost 25 years ago.
All I had was this pre mp3 era, shockproof discman: 
With the revolutionary behind the neck Sony mdr g61.
I do remember buying Koss headphones. I don’t remember the friend at the time that never returned them.
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I had those! Kinda miss them tbh.
I used to rock this for years growing up cause my immigrant family couldn’t afford much but they knew from an early age I loved! music.
had it from grade 6 to highschool but did me well when I used to listen to mother mother, death cab for cutie, jurassic 5 , andrew bird, arcade fire, mgmt and… the black eyed peas
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The shockproofing technology was key!!
I had this device where you could connect your discman to your car stereo via the casette player. All powered with a cigarette lighter plug (they were actually cigarette lighters, back then).
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Yup. I had that, and I’m trying to remember the last car or Van my parents had that had the cassette player. I can’t do it, don’t remember.
I’d like amir to measure the best cassette converter.
I think I also had the rf radio transmitter that sucked even more.
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I actually remember hearing the hissing noise and obvious distortion with that thing, even after all these years.
Is there such a thing a negative SINAD?
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I still have one of these lying around (no idea if it still works)
My first mp3 player $500 for 6GB’s (an actual spinning disk HD) in 2000
For point of reference it’s the same size as a portable CD player.
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I am 26. I knew about the hobby for a while. My father is an audiophile with an extensive vinyl collection. His mainstays are his vintage JBL 4312’s. But he also has another set of JBLs that are left, right and center that I don’t remember the model of. He also has a pair of 901’s that he enjoys for classical music (despite the general hate for Bose from audiophiles).
While I enjoyed his setup and collection, I was always fine with decent gaming headsets and cheap computer speakers. I recently got into the hobby more after buying a pair of IEMs the Tin T2s and then, shortly after, the Acoustic Research AR-E10s. I was surprised at how much better they sounded compared to the crappy earphones that come with your phone. My next purchase was a proper headphone in the Sennheiser 58X since I always like my old gaming headset a Sennheiser U320. Unfortunately the U320s died, and I ended up getting a MH752 after seeing Zeos’ video on it.
On the speaker front, I had the fortune of winning a free EVGA NU Audio Sound Card which features an impressive DAC and decent headphone amp. After that, I got a Parasound zAmp v3 to power a pair of old Mission 760i’s that my father had lying around. Finally, I have reached a happy place with my JBL Studio 530’s and 550P Subwoofer. Going to let my wallet recover and ride this wave until the upgrade bug itches again.
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I started a thread months ago on how we all got into this hobby. This age question is related. I’ll post a link to the old thread here. I would enjoy reading stories from our newer community members, as well as those who didn’t reply the first time around.
I started with Walkman, upgraded to Discman and still have the Sony blue Mini-Disc Player
loved the versatility
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I’m 17 and have been in this hobby for about 6-7 months. Got the Sennheiser Urbanite as my first even headphone,and that got me into headphone( audio in general). I have to work part-time job to buy more equipment
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That’s fucking cool!!! Impressive job keeping it
Impressive that you work for it!
Haha YouTube at it again . I’ve never heard beats but kinda feel ya, I used to think those were high end headphones (sound quality) because they were the only headphones that costed hundreds of dollars that I had heard of. And they were at the big stores like Walmart! So I thought if I ever wanted good audio I would eventually have to buy beats
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