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Curious to know when most people do their listening.Over the last few years, I've fallen into a routine that has served me well. ..I have two younger kids whose activities make it nearly impossible to do any serious listening until after their bedtime. Problem is, most nights I'm too tired by 10pm to begin a listening session. When I attempt it, I quite often fall asleep (please, no silly remarks about how this means my system stinks).
My solution has been to get up about 5am every Saturday and Sunday (and every holiday) and listen for 2 1/2 hours before my kids and my wife begin to stir. ..Thankfully, our den is somewhat sequestered so I can do this without bothering anyone. As an interesting aside, I've noticed that when I just wake up, my ears are far more acute and require far less sound pressure (volume) to draw me into the music.
To some it seems insane to get up at 5am, but listening to music is so relaxing for me, that it's almost as good as sleeping in terms of restoring my energy.
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nt
You know it is tuff these days for me to find time to listen and I’m sure that many people are in the same boat as me, too much to do and to little time. Well I have tried to make an effort to spend an hour or two each day with my hobby and as long as I really make it a priority I can do it but it required some dedication.First I have to drop off my daughter at school in the morning before 8 am and I usually get to work just a few minutes later. Most of the other people don’t make it into the office until around 9 so during that time I can set down, enjoy a coffee and listen to an album. (I admit I’m lucky where I work because we actually have two petty good systems in our office, including one in a conference room adjacent to my space and a second for our entire office which is mostly an open floor plan.)
Second I have a system in my bedroom and I usually listen to a couple of albums just before going to sleep.
Of course I have the living room system . . . which frankly doesn’t get used nearly enough.
Frankly to find the time to enjoy Hi-Fi required a commitment to purchase multiple systems. I was leery at first but having stuff all over the place let you take advantage of a few minutes when you have it.
Me too. I run my businesses from my home much of the time and with Mrs 'cat checking on far-flung family members, the phone and fax is always (and I mean always) ringing etc.I do love my home system but I find myself getting over to the weekend place (an hour away) for long listening sessions more and more. Same thing for watching DVD's too.
It's great to have a weekend place in the country. When you work at home you just need to get away. I used to work out of my house also. Sometimes it felt as if I was as work 24-hours a day.We are lucky enough to have a little cabin up in Tahoe and I spend as much time as I can up there with a terrific sounding vintage system.
The only thing not vintage is the phono cartridge, as this is an area where even the best vintage stuff comes up short when compared to the newer ones.
Talk-about-stress relief, go up to the mountains, put on a record and just mellow out. You can catch up on your listing time real quick up in Tahoe.
Mornings are the best time for doing anything introspective, I find. But unfortunately mine are already pretty occupied, so my listening is mostly at night, 8-10 weeknights, and then Sat and Sun afternoons, when I really blast it!
RFI is weaker at night at non workdays. Also that's where you have more peace of mind. It sometimes takes a shift of mind that usually comes with holidays to really explore the music content. WHen I'm short in time or stressed, I degenerate into listening to sounds rather than music and keep on switching tracks and dics rapidly just to see if everything is still ok, rather than listen for enjoyment. The belief that you don't have enough time is counter productive to enjoyment of this hobby. Noise (for others) is never a problem but I don't play it overly loud anyway.Minimal lighting (if any) also helps greatly in simplifying the sensations your brain has to deal with all at once. But if I have time, I will re-read the program notes of the CD because that helps a lot in leading you into the music.
Wake up, switch on stereo, get back to the bed, listen to it for 0-100 minutes (depending on time available and daily plan), it's still on during breakfast, until we leave home.
When I got back, switch it on.My place is real tiny, and the living room opens to the bedroom and the kitchen, they are not sonically separated.
Fortunately if I don't sit in the sweet spot, it still sounds very enjoyable. So me &wife listen to it whenever we are @home.If I have some time that I can dedicate to listening only, I sit down, and listen. This ranges from 15 minutes a day up.
Whenever wife is not @home, I crank up the volume (she is too concerned about neighbors...), and listen to Tschaikovskij or Carl Orff.Last time I was supposed to go to a party with my wife. She was already gone, and I switched on the stereo, playing G.F.Handel's Semele. It sounded so good, that I stayed home and sit 3+ hours in front of the stereo.
Most of the year I got carried away with tweaking, but this month I managed to enjoy what I hear and not worry about what should be the next tweak...
Good luck,Janos
I have a daughter who is eight and she will come downstairs to have a listen with me although we will talk a little while we listen to my "big music". I start around 5:30am until around 7:00am by myself and again at around 6:00pm till around after 10:00 with my Maine Coon laying next to me, (he loves it too) also with my wife and daughter checking to see if I am alive.
I just play music while I'm going about my usual business. As a kid, the stereo was out in the living room, and my folks would just play it "whenever": It was never a precious hobby requiring a dedicated room or time away from everyone else. Nowadays I've got a place of my own and can do as much listening as I please. The sound is technically best in a particular sweet spot, but I think I'm able to get the emotional message of the music while wandering about, and that suits me just fine.
I also have small children and the stereo is in the livingroom. Thankfully I managed to move the TV out to a basement home theatre setup a few years ago. My listening is also confined to after the kids go to bed, otherwise there's just too much activity and noise to seriously relax and enjoy it. Of course, that means that the system is confined to low-ish volume levels.Other constraints include speaker placement (it is a livingroom, 'ya know) and equipment proximity (25 ft speaker cable runs). With all of that I feel that I have managed to produce a fine sounding system.
We're renovating the house in 2004 - big time. I'll wind up with dedicated basement space for my system (the home theatre moves into the den). I just hope I can achieve sound as least as good as I have now after the move downstairs. But that's not always a given, even with a dedicated room.
My wife and I listen to the stereo from about 7:30-8pm to about 11:00pm nearly every night. TV programming sucks so bad we just watch the news and a few worthwhile shows and avoid the rest.
I have a dedicated room in the basement, kind of small but I get very good sound. I listen in a near field setup. I sometimes wish I had my system upstairs in the "house". when I want to listen it's a "dedicated" trip downstairs for a "listening session". It would be nice sometimes to have the system on as background music. it would always be on. On the other hand, I can listen whenever I want, as loud as I want. curious to see which you prefer, since you'll have experienced both.
My main system is in the family room or den, which opens up into the kitchen. I can fire it up and listen while talking to or helping the wife in the kitchen, and then casually stroll over to the sweet spot when something I want to get the soundstage feel from comes on.I think I would prefer a dedicated room, for volume reasons only. I like the flexibility that having the system in the den allows, but if I could have a dedicated room that was easily accessible, say, on the same floor as the other living areas, I would get a quality budget system for kitchen listening, then retire to my listening room when my son had gone to bed.
But that won't happen for quite some time, so I will continue to make due with my current set-up!
Hook this affordable FM Transmitter to the tape-outs of your pre-amp and broadcast your source material to any tuner (radio) in the house!!I have two 400 disc CD changers that contain all of my cds as well as a dozen album/song/genre groupings. ..It's great being able to broadcast my favorite music anywhere in the house or to my backyard (great for parties).
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