AS you get older, do you find yourself using your system/s more than you used to?

You need to rectify that!

 

Yep 59 and still love my music and yes more than ever!

 

I've been working from home since March 2020, and it definitely has helped increase my listening time. I set up a CD system in the living room (my converted workspace) and I'll listen to 5-6 CD's per day. Not sure if its due to age (turning 60 this week), but I've been listening more over the last few years anyway, but due to the pandemic it really has stepped up.

 

That's what I'm looking forward to....hopefully retiring in 2 years for me!

 

It’s not like it used to be. When younger it was nothing to watch TV or listen to music ‘till 2 or three in the morning.
Nowadays I’m passing out around 10 or 11pm but I’m usually up again around 2 or 3am.

This is where setting up a decent sound system along with our TV in the bed sitting room pays off. At this time of morning I can stream things like “my lists” from Tidal and discover new music while listening to a system able to give a pretty good presentation of the SQ.

We watch a huge amount of TV but I like to put aside what usually turns out to be about 3-4 hrs of listening time for my main system.

I’d say that the way things worked out I’m listening more now than I ever thought I would. Fantastic way to spend my time.

 

I'm 67. Yes, I use it more, and the weird part is that I care less and less how good it is. And my tastes in music are drastically changing of late. That is, though I considered them pretty eclectic back in the day, my tastes were downright narrow compared to today. Heck, I even got the album below (1959 mono release) as a "box stiffener" with the "Smash Your Head Against the Wall" album I ordered off a member in Discogs. I love it. And the background message is that I love that AND the album I ordered.

 

Yep, I'm turning 50 in a couple of weeks and plan to slowly offload my self-employed work piece by piece and eventually retire in the next couple of years, all things being well and if I stay lucky. Building up my system and escalating my purchase of records in the last few years has been with that in mind. I've already been working from home for 15 years or so now, so I was able to get a lot of benefit from it. But I anticipate using it even more once I stop working - I want to give it my absolute full attention.

 

I have been listening to music for as long as I can remember . My mother used to play 78s through our TV all day and my first fav was Ebbtide which I called the Seagull Song. So I was used to having music on all day. While I was on the road working I had a Sony cassette walkman and a Headroom amp to play music through my Grado phones in the motel. When I got home I ordered records from Acoustic Sounds when the dollar was close to par. Now that I am retired I am going through my stockpile of LPs that I collected over forty years. When people ask me what I do in retirement I say that I listen to records 2-3 hours a day. Only people still working ask how you spend your time. I don't worry about justifying my time. I've earned the right to do what I want. Music puts me in a reflective mood and I have gotten in touch with many people from my past. I waited too long to reach some people. So yes, I listen to more music than when I was working but have gone back to my schedule as a child. This is for all you youngsters out there. Time doesn't stop. Don't wait for a better time to do things. Do it now.

 

One of the major advantages of retirement is if you planned well financially you can concentrate on building your dream system just when you can truly have the time to enjoy it.

The younger that you can recognize that the piggy bank is your good friend the better off you’ll be down the road.

 

Listening more and enjoying it more as I continue the journey and staying young to my last breath:

Youth, by Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life—it is a state of mind. It is not a matter of red cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a temper of the will; a quality of the imagination; a vigor of the emotions; it is a freshness of the deep springs of life. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over a life of ease. This often exists in a man of fifty, more than in a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by deserting their ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair—these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.

Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being’s heart a love of wonder; the sweet amazement at the stars and starlike things and thoughts; the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what comes next, and the joy in the game of life.

You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

In the central place of your heart there is a wireless station. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, grandeur, courage, and power from the earth, from men and from the Infinite—so long are you young. When the wires are all down and the central places of your heart are covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then are you grown old, indeed!

 

Less and less for me. I'm 15 years younger than you and my life keeps getting busier and busier and more and more hectic with greater and greater demands on my time -- work related, family related, and in other areas -- and less and less time available for just sitting and listening to music, and COVID has way further complicated that and placed even more demands on my time because of my work. Also, as I get older, the less and less I like just having music playing while I'm doing other things. When I was in my teens and 20s, I put music on as background to other activities. In my 50s I almost never do that. If I get to sit and listen to music in my music room for an hour or two once a week, that's a pretty good week.

 

I'm definitely listening to more music - 10-12 hours a day. However, it's mainly streaming (Spotify/YouTube) to either a Dali Katch or BeoSound 2 wireless speaker. Sometimes I use a pair of Sennheiser headphones. This is mainly due to working from home, and my wife and I both having separate offices.

The main system gets a play just before bedtime (it's 'downstairs' from the bedroom, which is in the gallery space above). I should play it much more, but I love the convenience of the laptop/wireless speaker combo, and it sounds very respectable and - more to the point - engaging. I'm 62.

Perhaps this is telling me something...

 

The answers in this thread are interesting. Some missed the point of what I was getting at and others understood completely.

 

I don’t think there is any pattern to my listening habits. I’m listening more now that I was prior to 2021, but that’s because I spent good money upgrading my system (pre-amp, amp, speakers) late 2020 and early 2021. Listening is much more enjoyable with the new gear - what an improvement!

I listen more on weekends when I can stay up late and sleep in. I’ll get up, grab my yogurt, vitamin drink, water, and supplements and fire up something to stream from my PC while I eat and read the news (no one else is up as early as I). I’ll listen less if I’m hooked on some video entertainment (like a series I’ve purchased - The Blacklist, for example), or if I’m deep into a new video game.

I should start listening via headphones while reading my kindle. That would be great, as I can enjoy the music, block distractions, and get caught up on good-old-fashioned book reading (albeit on a Kindle…).

I don’t think any rise in the time I spend listening has anything to do with my recognizing my own mortality. Overall, I do find myself doing things and justifying said things with, “I’m not getting younger,” or “Hell, YOLO, bruh!” Upgrading my gear being one of those “things.”

 

I had to think about it but yeah, I am listening a lot more. I used to go through these periods where I would leave the stereo alone and binge movies or TV at night but I no longer do that very much. I watch TV with my family but when I'm alone, I'm listening to music. I wish I had a lot more time to do so, one or two albums a night just gets me warmed up.

 

I'll let ya' know when I get older!

Seriously, I am sort of a multi-tasker, but yes, these days I timeslice more music into my regimen. Sometimes for a day or two the slice can be quite large.

 

Just got back from a mine inspection.
Firing the system up right now.

I need me some music!

 

Thanks for the reminder. Haven’t inspected any of my mines recently. I usually go on an equipment spending spree after I do so.

 

I have a routine, so it's been twice a week for me for the last 12 years already. Usually on Mondays and Thursdays, Thursdays being usually the longer listening session. Helps to preserve both my audition, by giving my ears time to bounce back, for I love it loud and Klipsch-live, and my marriage, providing my better half the chance to flee the house when she doesn't like the music, which is most times, although with the pandemic I've been graced by her presence by my side on the couch when I was listening to some band we both liked. Man she sings beautifully (used to do backing vocals on a Rriot Grrl band) can gracefully sing along to everything she likes, and knows the lyrics to everything, while I can't seem to retain lyrics to even stuff I love and listen often to.

 

Yep 59 and still love my music and yes more than ever!

 

Since retiring I’ve listened to music more and more. LPs and CDs everyday, but none of that streaming. A well planned retirement and and empty nest are wonderful things.

 

you want no parts of this one my friend:
600 ft down
3 miles in
4 ft high

the things we do for family...and hifi gear

listened to since I got home:
The Yes Album (my fav Yes lp)
Kiln House

 

I like this thread...!! I'm 70 up late this year and only completely retired this year, I do miss some of my work, but yes I do listen to more music than I used to, mainly evenings but day time too, my TV watching has dropped to a few hours a week, maybe less than that, I walk a lot as I have a lot of walking areas around me, keep fit and healthy (so far), you do come to a point in life where you do consider your mortality, you realise there are more years behind you than in front and I think of my 3 grandchildren and what life will hold for them...If it wasn't for the music the last 2 years would have been...well difficult i'd say...it just keeps me smiling. Not worried if I stream (I found different artists that way), my CD collection or the small collection of vinyl that I have, I even listen less to Radio than I used to also, so yes I like this thread ...

 

The pandemic/lockdown helped me realize I can start saying "No thank you" to invites I get to do things I don't want to do, and I'm generally much happier about it. Plus a lot of my friends are having children now (which my wife and I are not) and are too busy with them to go out all the time, which frees up a bunch of time for the thing I enjoy most: listening to records.

Been listening quite a bit more than I was a handful of years ago.

 

It's more a function of starting a family than getting older per se but much less. I just don't have the time for it with work and other family obligations.