Columns Retired Columns & Blogs |
I generally walk around while listening to music.
Reader Samo Jecnik, from Ljubljana, Slovenia, has a simple question for audiophiles: "I'd like to know how much time per week <I>Stereophile</I> readers <I>listen</I> to the music on their <I>main</I> systems. I mean the time they're sitting in the sweet spot."
As long as I was single I used to spend quite many hours in the sweet spot listening to MUSIC. Now it is just 2-3 hours per week and then it is mostly comparing cables or tweaks. But 99% of the time it is me in the sweet spot for movies and TV programs (we only have one system and my wife does not care so much about the sound), and that is probably some 10-15 hours a week.
If I could figure out a way to convince my wife and family that listening to music is an essential part of life, my time would shoot up dramatically. That, unfortunately, isn't going to happen, so 2 hours a day, average, is going to have to keep me happy into the foreseeable future. Oh well.
Wish it were more, but I have a busy life and a family that I want to spend lots of time with. Music is on constantly at my house, but sweet-spot listening time is scarce. I do enjoy my Etymotic ER-4S headphones and HeadRoom amp when I travel, which is frequently. It's not the same, but it makes me happy and is an appropriate tradeoff at this point in my life.
Five to 10 is where it's at with me these days. Used to be a hell of a lot more when I was writing for SoundStage, but I now listen for enjoyment only and have squeezed the rest of my life into those extra hours. My listening therapy sessions are more effective than ever!
Because my listening room is small, I have a well-defined sweet spot, but it doesn't keep the others from enjoying the music. I am the main participant and spend 99% of the time in the good chair, but once a week I surrender it to my daughter, who I am training to be a world-class audiophile. (She is planning to change her major from math to acoustics.) Our enjoyment is not in any one type of music, but in music itself; the sweet spot is enjoyed, but is not the biggest part of our enjoyment.