I have two collections that I love but cannot justify: high-end headphones (each is sub-$500, but still really expensive and good) and mechanical keyboards (each is $240 or less). It took ten years to build up these collections, so the embarrassing amount of money I have spent is spread out over a long, long period. I was wondering today if people who spend a lot more than I do on vacations do so because they forego (and don’t care about) material objects like pricy headphones and keyboards.

Getting into these “hobbies” (if buying stuff can be called a hobby) was entirely accidental. I’m part of a product review program where I can occasionally select products I like for no money up front, and then only pay taxes on their value months later. I got my first taste of better headphones and better keyboards through that program, essentially through the luck of the draw. (I’m not in charge of which products become available for me to review.) If not for that, I probably would have no other headphones other than my AirPods, and would probably have a $100 Microsoft or Logitech keyboard that I would have to replace (because of wear) every year or two.

I think I am finally nearing “endgame” in both of these categories. I have fantastic headphones of nearly every type (dynamic and planar magnetic, open-back and closed-back, Bluetooth and wired), and they cover every situation, that I need. Similarly, I have mechanical keyboards for all of my computers, have tried a bunch of different key switches (clicky, tactile, and linear), and have even bought a “weird” ortholinear board that I never thought I would ever want until a couple months ago. Any new keyboard purchases are going to be about fixing something that is broken (my wonderful and unacceptably buggy Durgod tenkeyless) or trying out a different type of keyswitch on my new, hot-swappable ortholinear board. At least I hope that will be the case. Collecting more and more of these objects sometimes feels like an obsession, and is not something I want to keep doing forever.