There’s also a lot of snake oil in the hobbyist/personal hi-fi audio world. I’m a professional audio tech for live events. A lot of people don’t understand how audio works, and why audio gear is built a specific way. So they’re susceptible to bad faith sales tactics, which are oftentimes inventing problems that never existed before the product was being marketed. Or claiming to use manufacturing materials/processes that won’t make a difference on a physics level, but will make a difference in cost to the end user.

Hi-fi audio is a world of diminishing returns. A $1000 system will sound great compared to a $500 system. A $5000 system will sound a little better than a $1000 system. But a $10,000 system will only sound marginally better than the $5000 system, and many people won’t even be able to tell the difference between the two. Or to rephrase, they’ll be able to tell a difference between the two, but won’t be able to tell which one is the “better” system. They’ll simply hear the difference in speaker frequency responses.

Also, that classic rock song you’re critiquing on your $30,000 living room sound system was performed and mixed by people who couldn’t hear fucking anything. Their hearing was shot years before the song was recorded, by decades of crowd noise and stage monitors.

This one upsets me a lil because I occasionally record the music I write, and recording off a Scarlett Solo is not the easiest experience, especially when I'm only using the that came with it (aside from like my own amps and instrument specific gear).

I wouldn't know what to do with a lot of the expensive gear, but I could do something with it and get some genuine use out of it for my music. But at the same time I don't wanna fall into the same trap, so I only buy gear that I need when I need it, and that's usually stuff for my instruments themselves.

I've recently started putting together a home studio and made the mistake of asking online what I should consider before painting my monitors. Nearly half of the people who responded said, "Don't do it, it'll ruin the resale value." Like dude, I'm not here to be on a god damned gear treadmill. I'm here to make music. Gear is just a necessary evil to me and if I never have to buy monitors again I would be so happy. So, If I can get some extra joy out of them and make them mine, I'm gonna.

With some people it feels like their more gear collectors than producers. Though I gotta admit there where times where I bought a piece of equipment that was kinda outside the scope of what I needed because I thought it was nice to have.