Speaking of “you don’t need newer gear to be a better photographer”, Robert McGinley Myers on the pursuit (or not) of better headphones:
The perfect headphone set up always cost just a little bit more. Audio nirvana was always just out of reach. […]
I would occasionally spend an evening listening to a song on my new set of headphones and then on my old set, or with my new amplifier and then my old amplifier. I would make my wife listen to see if she heard a difference. Sometimes she did, sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes I didn’t. Every once in a while, I’d read a post on Head-fi about someone who was selling everything he’d bought because he realized he was listening to his equipment rather than music. I finally had the same realization and made the same decision.
(Via Marco, of course)