Listening Room

My wife has resigned herself to my dedicated, treated listening room.
That said, it IS in the attic. 🤔

That, or it goes smack in the middle of the living room, where it used to be for 40 years. 😬😆

@gents I have a chair in the sweet spot. I move my head even a few inches left or right, the sound changes. I do not “do other stuff” while I listen. That’s not listening, and it’s a waste, imho, of the investment in both time and money. If you wanna listen while you are cooking or repairing the car, get a cheap Bose Bluetooth system. Sorry, dude. 

@immatthewj 

My background listening was limited to earphones and a Walkman while doing 20 laps around Prospect Park on my bicycle or some such thing. Now I don’t do background listening at all. 
 

when I put on my audio system, I sit and listen. 

From the "about" page on my website:

"Vinyl Sundays" is a music appreciation concept. It was first launched as a public venture as "Classic Album Sundays" by Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy in London in 2010 and has spread to cities in Europe, Australia and America.

The idea is simple: in an era where music is treated as a free commodity, or worse, like sonic wallpaper, music lovers should be able to A) enjoy the experience of immersing themselves in recorded music the way it is best heard: in its entirety, uninterrupted, on vinyl, and on a quality sound system so that the artist’s original intention is fully revealed, B) hear & discuss the artist & recording’s unique story, and C) share the experience with people from differing walks of life, united only by their love of music.

I had been wanting to give this idea a go in a salon-like setting, and gave it some trial runs in my NYC loft. With my move to Newburgh, I launched this as a monthly event. It has been going very well, so I may go for every two weeks.​

The best listening experience requires that I keep the seating for each event limited to five. Before entering the Audio Attic, guests will be required to turn off their cell phones and leave them at the door: there will be no exceptions. If you are tied to your phone by a umbilical chord, this experience is not for you.

If this concept interests you, go to the CONTACT page and tell me a little about yourself and the types of music you enjoy listening to. Your name will be added to a waiting list from which I will make invitations each month on a first come first serve basis and on an algorithm not quite understood by me. I will provide some wine: guests are encouraged to bring some wine and snacks.

​

@gents 

lol you are the comedian today, aren’t you? 

I am a cheap rat bastard: over 55 years, I have spent as little as possible to get as maximum as possible performance out of my gear. It’s come out to $850 per year on average over that time, mas o menos, less than some folks spend on cigarettes or booze. Yet I’m guessing that the sound I’m getting matches that of many, maybe most systems costing many - some, many many - times as much these days. 
 

The point of it all is to hear the music the way the artist intended. 
 

You like - or are at least ok with - music as wallpaper, and from your tone it seemed that you expect everyone to be similarly content with that approach. I’m simply saying that I am not only not content, but that these days - actually I’ve always been this way, it’s now more than ever - I block out and dedicate time to serious listening. It’s like zen, but it’s music. It’s out of respect for the artist. I’m an artist so of course I feel that way. As an artist, I have to be a cheap rat bastard about this, because I don’t have infinite amounts to spend as some here at audiogon do. 
 

As for head positioning, it’s an inside joke that you are not on the inside of. I have severe cervical stenosis that amazes most neurologists because it’s so bad that they think I should be dead, but I’m not and not only that, I’m asymptomatic except for one little thing so they won’t operate. But that little thing is not so little to me: it causes tinnitus. They didn’t believe me at first but the pitch and volume changes depending on which way I turn or tilt my head: if I took note of the notes I hear, why I could write a little symphony just from the sounds emanating from my neck. I finally was able to prove it a couple decades ago by taking an audiology test and holding my head in different positions and voila!: the hearing results were different depending on the tilt of my head. Now it is accepted science: a study was done in Germany on 97 patients with cervical stenosis with concomitant tinnitus and they found that by working around a particular nerve that they were able to relieve the tinnitus in 93 of them. 
 

But I digress.
 

When guests visit my audio room for the first time, the first thing that they notice is that the room is quiet, and things sound different. And that they sound different depending on where in the room you are. And that’s without any music playing. I live in that room, and so yes I can even hear the difference from just turning my head. 
 

and I got the room to sound that way for $0.00 spent for that purpose. What I did spend the money on was 6” in the walls and 14” in the ceiling full of rock wool for a thermal barrier. Since rock wool has excellent acoustic barrier properties, my architect - who had designed a few recording studios - said to cover the walls and ceilings with fire resistant burlap instead of drywall and I would have the equivalent of a $250,000 recording studio room. For nothing. He was right. 
 

In other words, I take listening seriously. As many here do. 
 

But I’m not anal. For example. I know people who log the hours played on their cartridges. That’s a bridge too far for me. I’m a bit more practical (or lazy): when I start to get listening fatigue, it’s time for refurbishing. 

@audition__audio

- Two things about me: A ) I’m a cheap rat bastard. I find the cheapest way to get results worth 5 to 100 times or more than what I spent. And B ) I’m lazy. Well not really lazy, I just want to get the results I want as quickly, easily and cheaply as possible and I will do what it takes to get there and no more, so that I can enjoy the results and go on to the next thing.

- My wife and I bought a distressed 1865 4.5 story brick townhouse based on the #5 design in Villas & Cottages by Calvert Vaux (one of the designers of Central Park and Prospect Park in Manhattan and Brooklyn) for $5,780. The building had been abandoned for 26 years and was largely gutted. We hauled 82.5 tons (not a typo) of garbage and construction debris out before we could start with a top to bottom restoration and rehab to 85% of Passive House performance standards.

- the room was used prior to its current use for 26 years by crack heads who squatted there. There was evidence of 4 fires in the building. It’s a miracle it was still standing.

- to get to 85% of Passive House performance, we need to add significant amounts of insulation and building envelope tightness to a very high standard, beyond what code requires (though code is catching up), yet since it is an important historic building in New York State’s second largest historic district, we had to do it in a way that the city’s architectural review committee would approve of. Rockwool is the ideal material for this historic + energy performance construction because of its thermal barrier qualities and because it doesn’t begin to melt until temperatures of 2,000 degrees are reached. Blown in foam insulation is the last thing one wants to use: it’s not reversible, it gases off for years, it ignites at 380 degrees, and once it starts burning, it generates more heat, causing other things to catch fire and it burns until it burns out. By using this material, we are making sure that this historic building has a great chance to last another 160 years

- our architect specialized in marrying architectural preservation with building energy performance. He also had designed a few recording studios. He knew that I had been involved in this hobby since I built a Dyna 70 kit at age 14, and he knew that I lived in a spectacularly wonderful 2,000 sq ft Lower Manhattan loft that was nevertheless an acoustical nightmare. Since the energy specs called for 6” of rockwool in all the envelope walls and 12”+ in the roof, and since rockwool also is great for acoustic room treatment (many acoustic panels and audio room treatment products use the material), he said that instead of covering the audio room (the entire 400 sq ft attic) with sheet rock, to cover it with fire resistant burlap and I would have for FREE what his clients spent $250,000 - $400,000 on for their recording studios.

- I do not see why you would not aspire to the best room performance that you can afford. Recording studios must achieve a high performance standard because the recording engineers need to hear what is being recorded as accurately as possible. I’ve captured that performance level for zero dollars. Please explain to me why that would not be desirable.

- As a visual artist, I put a lot of work into creating something that I hope my audiences will spend the time and effort that it takes to appreciate it. Similarly, recording artists go to sometimes great lengths in the recording studio to achieve a desired result. I believe that the ideal we all strive for here at audiogon is to have a playback environment that reproduces the recording artist’s intentions with as much fidelity as possible.

- As for my being “scientific”, I don’t really know where that is coming from. As I think I said before, I am hardly as anal as many people here at audiogon. Like most people, I make do with what my grasp can reach, and rely on research and common sense to get the best results out of my room, which is suited due to its shape (the gabled roof yields few right angles) and what I did with it based on my limited learnings.

- I’ll be the first to admit that my approach is not for everybody. My approach is for me. It works for me. My single mindedness and simplicity of approach, adherence to basic - not rocket science - principles, and reliance on vintage components are maybe the most important take aways for members of audiogon to use or ignore as they see fit.

- RESULTS: I don’t get the “I’m into the music not the gear” thing. As I just explained above, the gear is at the service of bringing out all of the artist’s musical expression and intention. Art is in part about emotion. For about three months since Jon Specter spent 3 months rebuilding my amps, I’ve had people up to The Attic about every other week. Half the time, guests literally start crying because they have never experienced music like that and simply cannot believe what they are hearing. The word that is invariably offered to describe the physiological phenomena of the sound in the room is holographic. The music both surrounds them and penetrates them physically (I not infrequently hear very high quality systems, as good and sometimes in some ways better than mine, that leave me cold because the music stays on a plane in front of me, as if being etched on a blackboard).

- As for my charming personality: I used to be a shy quiet nerd. Then I moved to nyc. Then I started working for big ad agencies. I did well. You don’t do well in that business without developing very sharp elbows. Maybe in the final third of my life I will learn to mellow out again.

sorry everyone if I’m being redundant but somehow it seems like I’m not making myself clear enough to some here.