Do you listen alone or with guest s


I am curious about the social element of listening to an audiophile system. Do you listen alone?? with wife, ladyfriend, buddy or guests?? For myself, I prefer to listen alone and for a few important reasons. I like to listen to the performance of the system I have put together or have made changes to. I listen to judge the performance of the musicians in terms of innnovations,and new revelations about the music's structure. I listen to "just" listen, to get that emotional fix that only music can provide. I occasionally ask my wife to listen with me or to a particular cut, but after about six minutes she loses interest. In the past, with lesser systems, I tried to point out things to friends in the music that I was hearing. After a short while, I realized I was making others uncomfortable, and also myself. Listening alone over the years became a ritual. I never regretted following this path, and was/am surely open to other listeners in the room....Maybe this is smug attitude to have; I think it comes with the territory of high-end audio. It often annoys me when I see people switch on a stereo and listen for just background music, or incidental music. I feel it denigrates the music and the musicians (excluding hip-hop, Daughtry,and Lady Gaga) I realize and am grateful there is no "golden rule book" for listening to music. The audiophile who drops thousand of dollars on his system cares about sound and music---science in the service of art.
sunnyjim

Showing 2 responses by mceljo

Ironically, I often don't sit in the sweet spot even when listening along because my couch only reclines on the ends and the absolute best listening spot is in the middle. I do tend to lean a bit towards the middle. It's amazing how different things sound from the other end of the couch.

Right now my wife is reading a book on the other end of the couch and the dog is sleeping on his bed in front of us.
I generally listen alone simply because my wife doesn't enjoy the volume that I like to listen at, but because my system isn't in a dedicated room my listening time is limited at times. As long as the volume is down my wife really enjoys listening while reading a book or playing on the internet.

The most fun is when friends come over to enjoy my system. This past Tuesday evening a friend came over and brought his fiancee. She was extremely excited and now has dreams of owning something similar in the future. She's a violin player so I pulled out my best violin recordings and let her pick the volume. It's the first couple that I know where they may actually be able to shop for gear together from all indications.