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  3. 1010690369

How Do You Decide What to Listen To?

As with most things audio related what should be simple ends up being somewhat complex (or stupid, depending upon your POV).

I have approximately 2,500 discs (90/10 in favor of vinyl). The CDs are stored in the listening room, but the vinyl is stored in an adjacent room. The records are stored on two separate 4 level racks and are arranged alphabetically by artist.

To listen to music I first have to decide on CD vs. vinyl. If I'm lazy, I'll simply press play and listen to whatever is already in the CD player (a 5 disc changer). Odds are that it will be a number of discs that I really like, but it ignores and eliminates from consideration the vast majority of music that I have available. If I take the time to start searching through either the CD or vinyl collection, then I run into another problem. To physically scan through 2000 records is time consuming. Typically it takes 5 or 10 minutes to pick out a half dozen or so records from which I'll actually listen to 3 or 4. Since I only have a limited amount of quality listening time, I tend to select only those records that I know I already really like. To an extent I'm still ignoring a large part of my music collection. While I'm enjoying what I do select, the problem is there's alot of really good music that I'm not listening to.

I guess my question really is - HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO ALL OF THE GOOD MUSIC YOU HAVE? To select one record means you have not selected another. With only a limited amount of time, do you end up listening to only a fraction of your collection? The same 100 or 200 hundred disc over and over again. I have a good size record collection, but I know from these Forums that others have double or quadruple of what I possess. I would assume that others have this problem and I'm interested in how you have addressed the issue.
128x128onhwy61

Showing 1 response by garfish

garfish
1,840 posts
 
'61; a thought provoking thread, and you have an incredible music organization/access system. I identify with those who select music by present mood or maybe desired mood, and BTW, it doesn't always work (for me), and it may take me some time to actually find music that fits my emotional state. And sometimes (not often) I can't find anything that "fits" and I have a lousy listening session.

I only have about 1,000 CDs (no LPs), but as I don't keep music that I don't like, I've listened to many more than this to accumulate 1,000. My modest collection is organized much like others above, ie alphabetical by category. I also keep 100 or so "favorite" CDs at hand and tend to play them a lot, but I make it a point to delve into archived CDs (or new ones) to have something new/different to hear.

I like Jond's approach to selecting music;>) A neat sense of humor!

One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is; as the stereo system is changed-- especially significant changes, I've found that the character of many CDs change, and a result of this, some I like even more, but some I can no longer tolerate. Latest example of this is: I recently got new, pretty damn revealing speakers (Vand. 5s), and I'm now in the process of re-evaluating my whole CD collection. Actually, this phenomenon could be the subject of another thread.

The largest category of music in my collection is Blues, and I especially like acoustic blues. Cheers. Craig
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