Primary tabs

How Often Do You Listen On Your Main System vs. Everything Else?

How Often Do You Listen On Your Main System vs. Everything Else?
With car audio, background streaming, and iPods, there are plenty of choices for listening to music when away from your main system. Do you save your main system only for special occasions or does it dominate your audio life?

COMMENTS
greenelec's picture

I have an ARC,REL,Maggie system in the living room and listen almost every evening for an album or 2 at least. Also Sat and Sun Mornings. Same system also for movies an TV. Study has a Rega,Peavy, Outlaw,Yamaha, MIDI and CD system in study that gets a lot of use during the day.

tmsorosk's picture

How can anyone listen to car audio or an Iputts when you have a real fi .

ack's picture

> How can anyone listen to car audio or an Iputts when you have a real fi

That one is easy I have a job outside of the home!

But one that allows me to spend a couple of hours focused on various tasks not in a group or meeting environment.

So like most people in the IT Systems or coding fields I listen to music for a good while during the day. For me it usually means high bit rate (VBR) rips right now because of disk space through a outboard Soundblaster Extigy soundcard 24bit/96khz/100db SNR into a pair of inexpensive Sennheiser HD 202 cans.

I only have about a 45 minute commute short for my area of the country but still I do listen to music on the trip there and back.

It is not as nice as my home stereo but I think it allows me to appreciate the quality I have at home even more.

JeffD51's picture

Only own one 1 gig,Jensen mp3 player, only use it when walking the dog! Car radio leaves much to be desired. I'm in the 90% home category,I agree w/tmsorosk there really is no other way to go, Hi-Fi is the only way.

nauc's picture

I have an Onkyo 7.1 HT system that I listen to when I'm home. When I'm outdoors, I use my iPod. I also have a nice system in my car, (Alpine deck, Cadence amps, Oz Audio speakers, Resonant Engineering sub).

I'd really like to get into using vinyl too.

fricc's picture

You can have pretty decent sound in the car: I have a Volvo V50 T5 with "Premium Stereo System", which sounds pretty good, I replaced the original speakers with better ones. The system comes with an iPod connector that allows to control the iPod from the dashboard.

I bought a second hand 80Gb iPod 5G (the 2006 "iPod Video", just like the one in the picture above) which has a nice sweet sound (as opposed to the latest iPods which have a cheaper DAC), encoded a sizable chunk of my record collection at the highest possible bit-rate (with VBR) and I'm a happy man.

g0ldeng0pher's picture

I've been without a stereo system for what feels like forever and yearn for having a nice two-channel in a living room. I brought my recepter radio to korea which has a nice sound, but doesn't work for anything but quiet listening for the ipod or public radio. But I'm in process of a move back and assembling a nice vintage system.

Gotta appreciate how lucky we are that we've got time to sit in front of a stereo and just smell the roses. Or listen to them blossom as it were.

niterunner99's picture

Have too much other commitments to really have time to actually sit down & have a proper listening session on the set.
Most of the time are playing as background music while I move around the house doing chores!!

MarkBryston's picture

Although by the strictest definition I have a main system in a dedicated room I have complete systems in my living room and basement that obviously get daily play and an office system, car system and even a decent mobile system. Everyone of these except the main systyem gets played daily so the real question is how you choose to define listening. If its on and playing it is technically listening and then it might be 10/90. But if you define it as dedicated listening then its probably 90/10...so I split it right down the middle 50/50

desperaudio's picture

Got two systems set up in the basement/shop/office - one for testing gear, the other for main listening through my working day (usually 8am-7pm), another system on all day in the garage (more longer term gear testing) another in the bedroom on all day (cats like music too!) and another rig in the main living area (used only occasionally).
So I put down 75% - but other than the 2-3 hours of television in the evening - it's good stereo music (vinyl, CD, tuner) pretty much 7 days a week.
Don't own an iPod (or the like), don't listen to streaming digital/computer audio.

Rhiaazsb's picture

Unfortunately with work and family commitments taking up all of my time i only use my system(geared for home theatre) for watching tv and dvd's.
But at least it gets used (and enjoyed by the whole family) every single day.

dbowker's picture

Really, it all depends on my life at any given time. Some times I have free time, low stress and the planets align and I get plenty of good "main system" listening. Others I hear music in the kitchen of my iTunes on the laptop (still all lossless, but smallish outboard speakers).

DLKG's picture

I probably listen to my main system 75% of the time in the Winter and 50% in the Summer. That's because my secondary system is in my art studio down in my cold basement that I have to heat up with a space heater so I don't get down quite as much as I'd like. It's still a pretty good system though! Also I listen to my I Pod on the train commuting to work.

soulful.terrain's picture

75% of my listening sessions involve my dedicated two channel system.

The other 25% is on Youtube for only one reason. Finding new music so I can buy the Cd and listen to it on my two Channel system.

Mark Evans

kaybee's picture

When I get time to listen to music it is on my "main system" Meridian 598 DVD, Meridian 568.2, Dynavector H1.2 Amp, Shahinian Obelisk, late at night or when wife out lol.

I would say that I dont realy listen to much music if its not on my main system, no ipod rubbish or even car cd, just not the same unless its on a good system.

internal doors

X