If you don't seriously listen to "muthafuka" by Xzibit back to back for 90 minutes, you just don't have any audiophile qualifications. It will also let you examine the black background, organic soundstage width/depth (organorganorganic) and determine if your gear is worthless or not. Here you go, if this doesn't sound right or jive with your soul, you and your gear are no good (aka just don't meet audiophile standards). You will need to work for John Deere, drive a tractor, shop at Walmart and live a basic utilitarian life.
Sitting down at the end of the day to listen to and be immersed in music is the primary draw of this hobby for me. Being able to have that be all that is going on in my life for several hours in the evening is wonderful, very relaxing. I work from home and also tend to be a homebody in general, so I have music playing all day, but that time at night where there is nothing in the world but the music and the moment is special. I am very grateful to have it in my life.
I really need one of these to be transported to my listening room. But wait, maybe I could find some really small speakers….
I like your reply a lot and I suppose "lost art" is a little over-dramatic. It's not like the Mona Lisa burned in a fire. But I think VERY few people sit down and listen to music intently without interruption these days; fewer than decades ago when I became a serious listener. That' doesn't really bother me, but I think it's true.
Because they became engrained in your mind, and the nostalgia factor. At least, that's how I analyze my affection for the music I heard during my adolescence and early adulthood.
I listen these days when I'm doing something else at the same time - usually involving the laptop. I find I can listen to the music to get what I need of it. I don't really feel the need these days to pore over the lyrics in a sleeve, or whatever. I'm focused enough, all I need is the enjoyment. Maybe I'm just at that stage where I can sit back and enjoy the stereo doing what it does because it does it very well (IMO obvs!). I don't know. The days of forensic examination are maybe left to my teenage self.
It might well be, but how we enjoy or consume music is part of that no? I don't need to be focussed solely on that to enjoy it - at the time of writing this, I've the RHCP Stadium Arcadium (Kevin Grey / Steve Hoffman version) playing on the turntable and it's fantastic. That experience isn't lessened by me doing something else while listening to it.
Dedicated listening sessions resemble an insidious plot. They’re like a never ending maze coaxing me more deeply down a musical path that’s increasingly difficult to escape. I do escape but somehow always get drawn into it again the next time.
What the hell is "dedicated listening"? You have to dedicate yourself to listen to music like it's a chore to do so? Listening to music is a joy.
It's an audiophile thing. Some folk like to sit down and just listen to music to the exclusion of all else, but these days, I can do that with a bunch of other stuff and not lose out. If that doesn't sit with what other audiophiles think of as being part of the whole "thing", I can live with that, pretty happily as it happens.
You are correct. This is a reason why most stereos had a record changer rather than a single play turntable back in the old days.
Wasn’t this more for ‘party’ listening so the host wouldn’t have to mess with changing an album side every 20 minutes or so?
This is another reason and in fact, most people enjoy the music the most at parties and also to play those old Reader's Digest or Longines Symphonette boxed sets consistently.
