The Worst

I think this can best be illustrated with drinking wine.

Some people have to have the perfect Amarone at precisely 21 degrees celsius in exactly those specific glasses in order to feel it's a good wine experience.

Other people, while they appreciate the same as the first group of people, can still enjoy a powerful wine a little to cold in whatever glass and still feel it's a great experience.

Quality of life really is about what you want it to be.

Since I read "The Best" I wanted to write exactly this answer. Thanks.

I'd have added a cultural point of view: This debate is likely typically American, and Americans may have a problem with their owning stuff. I'd bet it is a perverse fascination on physical things, maybe induced by some TV/Movie propaganda.

For instance, I remember fairly well an American friend I had 5 years ago. We discussed one night long on "consumerism" and how bad it was. Then, the /next/ day, this nice clever guy bought an extremely expensive backpack filled with useless gadgets (an incorporated lighter, a water bag with a pipe so you can drink without taking a bottle out of the pocket, etc. etc.), showing it to me with tears in his eyes: it was so awesome a thing for a kiker like him!

I couldn't help remembering the "other kind of" hickers I crossed in Nepal: those Nepalese, they /walk/ from Snow mountains to India back and forth looking for work, and their "backpack" is an empty tissue thing with 2 rupees and one toothbrush inside, and they wear plastic slippers, and they sleep outside every day.

So what? So, "the Best" philosophy is both producing sometime very nice little pieces of perfection, like the iPod, and I understand why a professional designer would bend on this side. But I fear it is also pernicient and overall negative for normal people and the hole society, because it generates waste, frustration, greed, and so on...

Disc: I live in China, where the Best/Worst dialectic exists, but is obviously drawn along very different lines.

Yes, from the research I did the M50's were maybe the most mentioned model....I was just having a bit of trouble pulling the trigger on the $150 price tag.

I have a feeling I'm going to end up with the Koss Pro DJ100, they're supposed to be pretty fantastic for ~$50.

This is silly.

If you cook, buy a great chef knife. It doesn't have to be the best in the world, but spending a little more will get you a terrific blade with a great service policy that you'll use constantly and enjoy forever.

Buy a bunch of cheap scissors though, and stick them in every room you ever find yourself wishing you had scissors, and then never worry about that problem again.

Some things you might need more than once, but not all the time, and you'd rather it didn't break, get old, or get lost but you wouldn't mind quickly replacing it if it does. I'm thinking shower towels on this one, but yours might be something different. That's fine. There's no reason to get the finest terrycloth, but I'd rather not rub my skin raw every morning with sandpaper. Whichever towel is slightly more expensive than cheapest on Amazon will do just fine.

Not every purchase has to be an uncompromising statement on your position and perspective on the world. Choosing something other than the absolute best in every category does not mean living a life of cluttered crap. This entire debate makes me seriously question the rationality of anyone with religious devotion to either extreme. There are better things for smart folk to be spending their time thinking about.

Yes. My kitchen is full of bent spoons, probably mostly from trying to serve ice cream that was too cold, although they predate me here, so I'm guessing. I've broken plastic forks innumerable times. A couple of hours ago, I cut the wrapper of the butter without meaning to, because I was using a steak knife to carve off a chunk. And, yeah, there's plenty of silverware that just doesn't feel good in your hands.