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Do you buy duplicates of things?

#101
Sometimes. Usually it's things that I think are perfectly designed and manufactured but will wear out over time and cannot be repaired or have a high likelihood of being discontinued or "improved", which is seldom the case. Comfy shoes come to mind.
I have a carbon fiber whitewater kayak paddle which is no longer manufactured and i'm dreading the day that I break or lose it.
 
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#102
I don't, unless we're talking consumables or wear items. I don't have endless reserves of money and tend to favour "tried and true" when I make a purchasing decision.

When a thing stops being available or the parts become scarce, that's usually when I sell to a collector.
 
#105
Just for the Sadowsky NYC 4 because I don't keep it out all the time. She's the most babied in my arsenal.

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#106
For basses, no straight-up duplicates, but I frequently play J-basses and have three. Two are fours, and one is a five, and the fours have different fretboard woods and pickups so they sound different. They're variations on the J-bass theme, and all three could easily be used interchangeably at gigs.

I am a little OCD about having backups at gigs, because in my early days I occasionally broke strings. I discovered this was caused by a small burr on my Peavey Patriot's A string saddle that was fixed, but since then I've always liked having backups.
 
#108
I want to buy duplicates, but finances dictate I don't. Instead I buy alternatives with slightly different capabilities to expand my options while providing some degree of redundancy. For example, I have two class d heads, two lead sleds, 4 cabs (all different form factor), 2 non-amp DI solutions, and 2 basses (one 4-string and one fiver).

The only true duplicates I have are two BK Butler Tube Drivers (for guitar) - because I never want to be without one.
 
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#109
MetalMaximus said:
I want to buy duplicates, but finances dictate I don't. Instead I buy alternatives with slightly different capabilities to expand my options while providing some degree of redundancy. For example, I have two class d heads, two lead sleds, 4 cabs (all different form factor), 2 non-amp DI solutions, and 2 basses (one 4-string and one fiver).

The only true duplicates I have are two BK Butler Tube Drivers (for guitar) - because I never want to be without one.
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I forgot a bass! Two 4-strings + 1 five. Want another 5-string as a backup, again offering slightly different capabilities.
 
#111
Alexis Duntov said:
I have a MIJ Fender Sting Precision bass that I absolutely adore, perhaps even more than vintage Jazz and P basses that I own that are much more valuable. I just put TI flats on it and it's a match made in heaven. Now I'm thinking I grab another "just in case something happens" to the first one. I do this sometimes with other things, usually clothes. Though I used to do it with hard-to-find vinyl records as well. It's some part pragmatism and some part pathology. To date, I have never lost a bass guitar, or had it stolen or destroyed in a fire. The chances of anything "happening" to my beloved bass are next to zero. And yet the voice in my head says "yeah but if anything did happen, it would be hard to track down another." Also, I'm generally not someone with a GAS problem, as far as I can tell. I'm not into collecting instruments or gear. My main instrument these days is acoustic bass and I'd never dream of having an identical backup. No room and I don't have several thousand extra dollars lying around. Do others suffer from this delusion that we need a backup in case lightning strikes?
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Update: the fever broke. So what if the grain on the other identical bass is a little nicer than the grain on my current bass. My instrument is fantastic and the chances of anything going wrong with it on a gig or otherwise are the same as something going wrong with any other instrument. Very low. If I need a backup bass, I have two other P basses and two jazz basses. This was just irrational thinking. The hole in my soul is not, as it happens, in the shape of a Fender Sting P bass. Thanks for some great responses. Also, some of you people should be ashamed of yourselves with the same bass in every fruit flavor. (Just kidding, live and let live).
 
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#113
I have backup guitars, but no duplicates, similar, but different sounding, different setups. My amps are all quite different.

I do buy duplicate albums. I have largely replaced my LP and cassette collections with the same CDs. I kept the LPs and cassettes. I have also "upgraded" to many remastered albums, as I feel that the early days of CD mastering was somewhat flawed, e.g. "Aqualung" was terrible in its first CD issue. I also enjoy the bonus tracks that seem to be part of the remastered marketing ploy to sell another copy of a popular album. I have nine versions of the "White Album" and I'm on the fifth version of "Dark Side of the Moon." The wife says that the only thing that separates me from an album hoarder is the fact that the collection is alphabetized and each item has an entry in my music data base.

I also have duplicate and/or backup versions of stereo equipment. I have been collecting stereo equipment since 1969, and I just can't stop. My house has seven different stereo systems ranging from a nice studio system to a couple of Bose Wave radios, with some nice systems in between. I have four SONY ES receivers that are nearly identical that serve the studio system, two installed and two backups. I don't want to lose my studio system in the middle of a recording session. I want more stereo equipment, and guitar equipment, I will never be satisfied.

My wife collects horses, which are way more expensive than my musical equipment, so she is O.K. with the musical equipment I enjoy. She likes music and is a musician herself, so it is not a hard sell.

The greatest majority of my musical and stereo equipment is purchased used at pawn shops, Craigslist, thrift stores, etc. I spend a fair amount of time shopping for these things and jump on the great deals that come up.
 
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