Is Downsizing The Ultimate Audiophile Nightmare?

My wife served me with an ultimatum last week – move out of the mountains or face a future of living alone. Given that I love my wife, and she loves me, that alone thing isn’t really an option, so I’m moving. But I’m not only moving, but also downsizing to a house that is only 2/3 the size of my current abode. I’m going to lose my large listening room – buh-bye Dunlavy SC VI speakers – there’s no way a 550 lb. 6ft tall speaker will fit into the basement of the new house, and that sucks.

Loosing one complete system also means that one of my two venerable VPI turntables will be redundant, maybe. I thought about selling my TNT III with Graham 2.0 tonearm, but I think it’s going to fit right next to the TNT in the basement home theater, which is also where all my records are going. No, I’m not selling my records, or my CDs. But magazines, out of date catalogs, and most likely my entire collection of Vintage Guitar Magazines dating back to 1998 will not be going to the new house.

I figure it this way – to fit into the new house I have to get rid of at least 40% of the stuff I own. For anyone who collects anything, that’s hard. But I’m starting with the easy stuff – going through file cabinets to reduce my paper bloat by half. Next week, when I’m up to it, I’ll begin looking at all the extra gear in closets and on shelves to figure out what’s not going to make the trip to the new place and put together a “sell” list.

Given that it will be a brand new house and the prospective move-in date is five months off, I think I’ll have time to divest myself of excess stuff without too much panic selling. But in the meantime, anyone want to buy a pair of Dunlavy SC-VI speakers at a VERY reasonable price? Or how about one of my spare Adcom 535 II amps? No cable for sale – anything I won’t need for the new house goes back to the manufacturers or to The Absolute Sound’s home office in Austin for disposal.

So, you can expect to see a whole series of articles here about the trials, tribulations, tricks, and the whole process of moving and fitting into a new abode – audiophile style, during the next couple of months. I hope that you will enjoy the process more than I suspect that I will…