synthesizers

why do audiophiles spend so much money on this stuff, and then barely use them? My friend inherited a bunch of synthesizers, keyboards, speaker systems, etc from someone, and every time I hear them mention having to sell something they say it ranges in prices from $200 USD to $1k USD, I'm not that well versed in audio culture, but this seems really absurd to me. pic related. I love how they look, so please share more.

Musical instruments, such as synthesizers, are tools of a trade. The idea of having a lot of tools is covering as much ground as possible in order to have whatever available you may ever need. That said, a lot of people end up with GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) and buy stuff they don't need just because they can. Sometimes because you convince yourself you may need it some day, or because, as you stated, they love how they look. It's a very interesting topic if you ask me, as a lot of musicians recognize the issue but don't really do a lot about them. I used to have a giant electric guitar and effect pedal collection even though I played barely any of them. Now I only own 4 guitars and whatever fits on my pedalboard. I wish I had money for synths tho, I love them to death.

I think this accumulation of 'gear' as No. 9611 mentions is a pretty common affliction of certain types of hobbies. I don't know much about sound, but take i.e. electronics. Maybe you start out with just a soldering iron, and that seems good. But you can't debug with a soldering iron so you need a multimeter, maybe an oscilliscope. You get a small variable powersupply and then you get a project where you need a better one. Different voltages, more power, whatever. So you get more power supplies, you get some fancy signal anylizers, maybe a better oscilliscope, or better probes. SMD with your original iron is basically impossible and all the good components are SMD, so you get a heat gun and maybe a reflow oven, etc etc. Each of these odd items holds a purpose, frequently one that's just not held by any other, even if they're ostensibly the same role. Some of them replace others, but many just compliment or fill in the gaps. If you're into a hobby like this for a long time you're likely to just accumulate equipment, not neccisarily all at full price because you keep your eyes open and you know other people with the same hobby who sometimes die, and sometimes just want to get rid of things, and like to see them go to a good home. There's a lot of hobbies that have some elements of this, perhaps some more than others.

>>9611 >>9612 Both of these ideas make a lot of sense, yes, thank you for your input! I've inherited a lot of computer equipment for similar reasons from this same friend, they had it laying about and decided to give it good use. Now their early 2010s educational machine is running escape from tarkov in 40-60 fps >:D i think they have a lot of rare technology both in computer parts and in audio equipment. Their keyboards are scary looking, i wanted to play the Korg they have in their room a bit, but they never moved the synth rack and i wasn't going to ask them to...

Another factor is some musicians dislike using digital gear and will go out of their way to have a fully analog setup, which results in a lot of gear. The justifications I've seen most often are that it sounds better, it's easier to do sound design when everything is a physical component, and it's more captivating for the audience than just a single rack mounted effects system or running everything through a computer. I don't agree with all of that, but I get where they're coming from. It's also just plain fun to play with knobs and patch cables. >>9611 >That said, a lot of people end up with GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) and buy stuff they don't need just because they can. And a lot of times, they're buying stuff they don't need even though they can't. I know too many people who bought expensive gear with a payment plan and ended up in debt for years.

Synthesizers, like guitars, until very recently were incredibly individualized in terms of sound. Two models of the same synth could sound completely different and had different features. There have been certain pieces of gear that increase in price either for sonic reasons (has a certain sound), due to fame (famous artist used x instrument and his fans who want to recreate his sound need x instrument), or due to limited availability (a lot of independent synth and effect pedal makers only do x amount of pieces of gear). I think sometimes for me acquiring gear can be a FOMO thing where I think to myself "when will i ever get the chance to get this again", but im pretty good at keeping it to the bare minimum and not overdoing it with what i'm using to make sound.

I really regret buying a 800$ polyphonic analog synthesizer. It had a muddy sound, maybe some cool presets but it was really hard to use as you had to make the presets with a 5 inch screen using 5 buttons instead of any knobs, so basically using a virtual synthesizer on desktop is much more productive. Also with it I could only do 30% of what I can do with my virtual synthesizers I bought for 600$. They take tons of space, and you can accidentally break them like I did. That synthesizer no more has noise level and low pass cutoff sliders because it fell on the ground. You can always download your virtual synthesizer again. But I believe some people actually benefit from them, maybe there is a subtle difference in sound but anyhow there is lots of problems with them.

The emergence of modern synth VSTs was pretty much revolutionary for the music industry. I think NI Massive was singlehandedly responsible for EDM going mainstream in the 2010s because every student with a laptop could make their own wubwubs with it. Been there done that, I switched to industrial and powernoise now but still make do with VSTs. Physical synths are mostly obsolete as a musical instrument. Knobs and keys can be replicated with MIDI controllers tied to VSTs and many modern physical synths are digital anyway so there is no "voicing" benefit to them that >>9637 mentions. There are of course collecting and aesthetic aspects which I tend to disregard, altho the latter might help in live performances. As for the insane prices, the audio industry is generally ridden with them because audiophools are willing to pay a kilobuck for good branding and snakeoil claims of what might be a piece of copper wire. There's a reason sites like Audio Science Review exist. Hope they start measuring synths too sometime.

We live in a consumerist society. Simple.