Adventures in Downsizing

CPP said:
I guess you didn't read what I wrote. Anyway I really don't care..


Some other FYI; I retired in 2010 13 years before we sold our beach home. I'm over 70. We paid cash for our 3250 sq ft beach home. We sold our beach home in 2023 and yes downsized. Paid cash for the home we moved into and re-invested the rest. We downsized, due to health,(Mark knows that) plus, we just got tired of F&^king sandbags and storm surge and having your home surrounded by water during hurricanes, but that's the risk one takes and now its the ever raising maintenance cost and HIGH ever raising insurance cost of living at the beach,. When your insurance ( if you can get it) cost goes from $2135 a year to $9821 a year in 13 years, not counting flood insurance cost there is a big problem, not to mention the counties failure to maintain the dunes protecting your home. And insurance companies continue with threats if you don't replace a freaking roof or they will cancel your coverage. Total Fla Insurance Co BS. Not sure how many here have compared prices to replace a 3000 sqft+ concrete barrel tile roof lately, its northwards of over $70K in parts of Fla these days. And rather or not its involuntary is baseless. PS: Breathing and circulation are involuntary processes. So you do what you do to either protect your investment, your health you change it and if its downsizing, so be it.

So until people think they can criticize someone whom downsizes, or think they really know, get in their shoes then make a choice. And in my case, it has F@&king zip to do with a WAF, or freaking audio.
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Well said Chris, we moved from California for similar reasons. Mainly so we could afford to retire keeping similar lifestyle. We were able to purchase our new home for cash. It is not smaller than our California home, but it is a whole lot less expensive. It is also single story (which seems to be unusual around here) so it will be easier for my wife and me.

My music room got downsized but I made do with smaller speakers and over all smaller space. But that is just fine. If I had to go to just headphones that would not bother me too much, but so far, the speakers are fine since the music room is a bit separated from the rest of the house, in a room that sort of hangs off the back of the house.

Anyway, people's reasons for downsizing are real and sometimes the absolutely best decision for them.
 
The adventure continues. Now attempting to reduce the number of components to fit inside the stereo equipment cabinet. The turntable and phono preamp are going to remain. But I still have a streamer, a DAC, and a new preamp (the one that I recently bought to replace my monster-size AVR!).
Looking now at replacing the DAC and the new preamp with just one component.
I may have found one (pending more critical listening). It only weights 3 pounds and saves lots of space (the picture below shows the footprints of the existing components and the new device.
 

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The beauty of downsizing today is so many components perform superbly without taking up enormous space, including speakers !
 
I believe that I am pretty much done with downsizing. Got rid of a subwoofer, big/heavy power plant, NAK deck, huge/heavy mono amps and preamp. Ended up with much smaller (in size and cost) equipment but with better sound and extra money in my pocket!
 
nicoff said:
I believe that I am pretty much done with downsizing. Got rid of a subwoofer, big/heavy power plant, NAK deck, huge/heavy mono amps and preamp. Ended up with much smaller (in size and cost) equipment but with better sound and extra money in my pocket!
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Sounds too good to be true. I have never heard of anyone who gave up a big stereo system capable of covering the full audio range with large-scale dynamics and a realistic soundstage and replaced it with a much cheaper small system that is incapable of doing what their larger system could do and claiming they ended up with better sound.
 
mep said:
Sounds too good to be true. I have never heard of anyone who gave up a big stereo system capable of covering the full audio range with large-scale dynamics and a realistic soundstage and replaced it with a much cheaper small system that is incapable of doing what their larger system could do and claiming they ended up with better sound.
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Not a surprising view coming from you...
 
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