We planned to move into a house suitable for rest of life (hopefully another 30 years) next year upon retirement. It would still have to have a big enough music room - and in fact we decided it has to be big enough to allow children and, if we’re lucky, grandchildren, or other family members to feel comfortable visiting and staying. (The plan is an upstairs that can be shut off when not needed.) So no downsizing for us.
COVID has stalled the plan and is causing a rethink, and we may end up staying where we are -so I would just do the room tretment I’ve held off. Staying here still leaves the possibility of moving some time in the future, and I recognise that big speakers and heavy amps could one day be beyond my ability to move - but hopeful one or both of our sons would provide the manpower if that happened. Once set up it is not as if the system needs moving.
Will I bought the Luxman primarily to drive speakers. The fact that it’s output stage doubles as a dedicated headphone amp was an unexpected accident. Sometimes the greatest discoveries are unintentional.
Prior to that, I was using a HL2/HCdr fed by and NDX/XPSdr and I certainly auditioned a bit to get there. Both headphones (I loved the sound of some of the Audeze cans but they hurt my head), and amps. I spent a day auditioning a Classe, Chord, Sennheiser, and even an Oppo headphone amp. Yet none of them came remotely close to the HL2/HCdr combo. It was so far ahead in terms of air and sparkle.
And yet that headphone system got very little use. I’d stick the cans on. Think “this is fantastic!”. Then I’d wake up an hour later having nodded off after track 1.
I’ve never nodded off once with the Luxman. It’s a bit of a richer sound than the HL2/HCdr. And it tames that 5kHz bump the HD-800 have that led to the HD-800s. There are fancier headphone amps out there. It doesn’t have impedance selection or balanced outputs. And without testing other cans on it, I can’t say whether it is a fluke with the HD-800 or not. But the fact Luxman can’t make enough of the units and most are being used entirely sans speakers tells you something.
Total deafness is one thing, but not that frequent. And though I have not experienced myself what loss of hearing in old age feels like, I doubt it’s in such a way, in all cases, that you cannot distinguish at all anymore. In any case, the bass vibrations in the couch and my body are already a big attraction today (and why I can’t live with headphones), and as far as I know that’s one way deaf people experience music. So, all in all I am not convinced that old age makes a good system useless. We’ll all find out, unfortunately