For a daily or nightly listening session, which might only be 1 to 2 hrs or less, I play a few of the last several CDs I have purchased. I keep the last 35-40 CDs that I've bought unshelved and on a table or chest near my system, to remind me to listen to them several times to decide if they deserve "classic" status in my collection. For some reason, I save LP listening for weekends--something about feeling they take more time and energy to set up and play and so need to be saved for weekends when I have more time. At least monthly, I go to an area of my shelves where I haven't looked or selected in months, and pick 3 or 4 discs or LPs that I've forgotten about, or liked once when I played them 4 yrs ago, or have just recently read an article about, or something, just to show myself that I AM digging into my collection and trying to listen to some of the early pieces I've bought as well as the most recent. My shelves of rock and punk and new wave, which were drawn from heavily and almost worn out in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, are rarely selected from now. In fact, I may move the rock collection to a more remote set of shelves so I can place my current favorite music, jazz and alt.country or folk, front and center instead of off to the sides where it resided during previous decades. My jazz collection has grown enormously in the last 5 yrs so I need to find more shelf space for it. Even with all this thought and rearrangement, I can only listen to a fraction of my collection in any given year. Nevertheless, every time I comb my shelves I find maybe, at most, one CD, and NO LPs, that I can part with. Paring down the collection is impossible. After all, it is a collection, like a museum of my tastes, personality, and maturity over the years, and I can't just LOBOTOMIZE part of it because I haven't listened to it in 10 years! I loved your question, because I think of this issue every weekend when I get ready to spin some vinyl or plastic.
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.
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.