How many albums is too many?

HolyMoly, good post . My kids call it my music library, never thought about it.......But I like it. I have many genres in my collection/library, as I too want a broad range of material to listen to. I can't just listen to rock based music 100% of the time and prog is so damn boring at times!! I grew up with R&B and Funk, I love them both! I have a growing love of jazz, especially modal jazz and some hard bop and have a small collection of blues. As well from 70's Disco and Rap (the garbage from today, is garbage) Grandmaster Flash and the like.

I don't generally count the digital downloads I have bought as my collection, I do buy albums in mp3, FLAC, WMA, 24bit hi-rez and super hi-rez DSD files (spendy buggars)....All these number to about 2,300 albums, all of this is what I play during the working day.

How about 5,000? 

I'm curious what people consider a lot though. To some over 500 is a lot. To others over 5,000 is but some might think that's not that much. For me personally it's up to the individual. If you don't intend to play a good chunk of what you have then you have to much but as was stated if you want to look at it as a collector or as a library then I guess it doesn't really matter. As long as no one feels their collection is just taking up space then it's probably not a big deal.

Reckoning that it is fairly rational to make 1-1.5 studio albums a year, 18-19 albums are the limit. That's how I perceive it all. 

Speaking of the actual topic of this thread, I used to listen to any music including progressive rock (including my favourite Gentle Giant) in 128/44 tagless mp3. I think this exact format ought to be considered legally free for any music by any authors (like I think that 320*240 800 Kbps videos of any movies ought to be considered legally free for anyone, too). 

To my humble mind, DVD and nice quality Audio CD are two final columns that need no improvement. Hyper 2234-channel Flu-Ray et al is not for me. Just a personal opinion. 

And so, my personal decision and solution is: free low-quality audio or possibly rather expensive good quality SHM-CD or whatever else. 

Then, how many albums depends on the way of thinking, way of listening, way of processing of what you've just listened to. I'd say that 2,000-3,000 LPs (perhaps including the individually made compilations) is the total summit covering practically everything I need to know and listen to. 

Again, thoughts may differ. And that's great! 

 

My problem is trying to resist the urge to listen to everything I've not heard before, because there's obviously far too much.

Havong moved a lot (5 countries and countless appartments since I started buying records), I've always been careful of weeding my collection and cutting the dead branches (usually by making Maxell tapes or CDr compilations of a few lesser albums of a given artiste).

But there is such a thing as "too much albums" for me, but I couldn't possibly quantify it if my life depended on it...

I am indeed between 30 and 40 in age. 

I guess she knows your taste very well or maybe you give her a list. ;) If not does she ever buy you stuff you don't like or maybe already have?