How much and how often

Hi all.

The thought hits me periodically, so since I know that everyone has his own mind I chose to hear other people’s opinions.
When I browse the Music Corner forum, not only I see lots of names of bands or records I have never ever heard about - and I’ve been messing up with all kind of music for the last 55 years - but I also learn that, say, some play a records three, four times in a row, others go to sleep at 3 a.m. because a cable has ‘made him/her rediscover his/her music collection’; others collect several editions of the same piece of classical music, as if they actually were different things. Generally speaking, I get a feeling that either the forum is by now populated mainly by millennials or younger, or that a sort of music bulimia has taken over.

‘It took me months to accurately rip and tag my 1500 CD collection’: 1500? If I exclude the friendly and consistent contribution of a fellow member who shares with me interesting things, I’d have issues in selecting 100 CDs from my music library to put them on an SSD. How many have I bought for the wrong reason!: a nice cover, nostalgia, a momentary lapse of reason, professional duty; but how much is the music I really love and listen to?
And, how often?

The thought that hits me is an insoluble impasse: I feel my system is too sophisticated and expensive for the amount of music I listen to (does anyone of you go every night to a concert with a £/$ 80-100 ticket?) but I couldn’t do with a more plain, cheap set because the hungry for good sound would win over me. The Guy In The Sky knows if I have tried: I did with a €200 amp and with a €20,000 system (bought s/h), but the bottom line is that I always end with the 20,000 system and a very moderate need for music.

Do most of you really play hours of music every night? Do you really rate a totally unknown band as the CD of the day (or the year)? Is someone else in my same position: a normal, occasional wish for some Schubert of quiet jazz but the invincible urge to have it sound like in the studio?

Because I wonder: isn’t it rather that since we have been led to own a supercar we have grown an addiction to smell the gasoline?

Best
M

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Hi - Haven’t heard you in a while. Still running a SuperNaitX and a Naim standmounts/ovators?

The big music system is for the family. The music is pretty much on all day. Nothing sophisticated - depending on the age of the kids we’ve been listening to Raffi, Elizabeth Mitchell, and a lot of Okee Dokee brothers. The kids also love Paul Simon.

Lately, the kiddo has taken to classical. He hates the music I play - Rock, Jazz.

Go figure.

I’ve been working from home since March. The more modest system in the study now gets far more usage - and unfortunately the kids now watch more TV than listen to music.

Maybe I’ll pull the 552/500 into the study and put the 282/250 outside. It’s just that the speakers are the Titans and they’ll prefer the 550/500.

Still kids grow things change - maybe they’ll listen to music again.

I often don’t believe my every thought. A useful way of being easy on myself. :smile:

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I play music while I’m working, sometimes I can play up to 10 albums in a day.

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Music is a core part of how I live. As a student with a very basic system I listened to music a lot, and life long friendships were forged listening to music with people of similar musical tastes, long before any possible need to justify expensive systems to myself, For about 15 years I had no television, and my evenings at home were all spent listening to music from getting back from work until bedtime (I was out with friends several evenings a week as well, during that time I was averaging more than one concert a week as well aS theatre, restaurant and pub meets). Now with a television I still listen to music for several hours a day. I find it hard to recognise your description of listening to a lot of music as “bulimia”. I find listening to music I love energises me, helps me centre myself, and gives me the urge to hear one more piece of music.
I suspect that rather than over-analyse it, we should accept that different people have different reactions to music, some listen in small amounts, others to a lot, and take pleasure that we get joy from music.

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I (we) play music every day, radio & web radio mostly during the day, a few times I might play an album. Evenings we tend to watch TV, if it includes music its via the Naim, but when TV has nothing we want to watch, its music from the NAS or if something special like a live concert its from the radio.

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:grinning:

I play music just about every minute of the day and night, except when I’m asleep or watching a bit of TV.

I’m also a new music junkie, so always on the lookout for new things to knock my socks off. Thus I make no apology for my end of year lists to have a number of artists that no one has heard of or even wants to hear of!

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Most of my day is spent listening to music on the radio, vinyl or ripped cds and llike Mike-B will watch a bit of TV via the system in the evening. Though last night as there wasn’t anything on that I wanted to watch, I went exploring youtube for live music videos of bands I liked and of course got distracted and discovered music that was new to me and some of it I liked.
For me, one of the best things about the digital age is that it is much easier to link TV and Hi-Fi together and get better quality TV sound, especially for music shows. If only we could have had this back in the days of The Old Grey Whistle Test, The Tube and other shows that you could see and hear live bands playing. BBC Glastonbury coverage is definitely much more enjoyable when listening through the system and I am looking forward to next weekend when the BBC is showing lots the archive of live recordings from Glastonbury.

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My main system is on in the evening for tv, rarely for music, perhaps a couple hours a week. But my minor systems are on from the moment I wake up, whether for radio or music, to early evening.
As for my choice in music; mostly I listen to a mix of classical and contemporary; once a week I’ll listen to Radio Paradise for new music, once every quarter I subscribe to Qobuz. Roon radio keeps me supplied with music throughout the day, often revealing long forgotten albums in my collection.

I am almost never without music or radio when I am at home. I am always looking for reviews online/podcasts etc of new music and that in itself is part of my hobby. I can enjoy music almost as much by whichever route I listen; from the cheap bluetooth speaker in the kitchen to the big main system.

In contrast we almost never watch anything on TV apart from occasional sport such as 6 nations or Wimbledon. Maybe less than an hour a month on average between us plus the odd movie at home.

My HiFi kit costs a lot more than my TV by a factor roughly proportional to the use each get! I think my system is good value for the pleasure it give me, and indeed us together.

Bruce

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Same for me/us, we barely watch the television. For me evenings is either music or I am outside in the hot tub!
It’s also a hobby. Some people like spending there money on cars for me I know what I’d rather spend my money on…

To balance it out a bit, by & large I’m with MassimoBertola. I’d never play a record 3 or 4 times successively, nor collect numerous varations of the same piece of musice. I’d diverge at the idea of not making accurate rips of the CDs, it’s better if it the metadata is right and the time it took wasn’t an issue - it occupied a period during the redundancy notice a couple of years ago so there was plenty of opportunity and incentive to do it properly. A lot of the CDs haven’t had a play since they were bought but they were all bought for a reason - never say never when it comes to wondering if some of them will ever be played again.

I’m not looking for exciting new bands or new music to latch on to these days. My own collection plus random amblings around Qobuz occasionally guided by posts on the Music thread provides plenty of exposure to new stuff but by far the best means of hearing undiscovered music is to have 6 Music on through the working day. Just like John Peel’s show, there’s enough uninteresting dross but in between is some absolute gold, and the daytime presenters are good company for working from home with: Lauren L in the mornings, Sean K or Mary Ann Hobbs in the afternoon. But that pops out of the Muso, not the big shiny main system in the front room. I find these days that gets less and less listening time, other than being a handy radio for the news & occasional comedy. That’s been a surprise - wife is away as the long term carer for her parents; not so long ago that would have been the signal for being up till the small hours working through Qobuz or the NAS. Nowadays the tv is more inviting - real people live on screen, not a bit of music that’s by now a bit too familiar in some cases.

I like the supercar analogy. Tbh I’m quite satisfied at getting to the point where the music system is now probably as good as any for miles around. It doesn’t make we want to sit in front of it for hours every night, just as I doubt I’d want to drive a Ferrari for a few hours every night if there was one parked outside. It’s enough for it to be there when the urge does arise.

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Thanks for all the replies and the interesting points of view. My own point was whether we, as average gear-music lovers, tend to have system disproportioned to the amount and/or quality of the music we listen to. My taste, moreover, seems to shift by periods; there are times I can’t stand but the most intense, discreet, reflective piano solo jazz, others when I can only listen to unashamed symphonic elations like Strauss’s.

@MMky: No, I am presently traveling on a different trail. My system is a MacBookPro early 2011 with SSD and 8 GigaB, LAN connected to a dedicated Apple router LAN connected to my modem and LAN connected to a Bricasti M3 streamer/DAC and into a Pass Labs ST-25 integrated. Klipsch Heresy III speakers. I sometimes miss the fleshliness of Naim - I’ve been into Naim since 1984 with very short hiatuses - but life is also change and experimenting.

Best to all
Max

Very definitely. Sometimes over several years, which makes me wonder if I’ll be alive the next time I’m really into Italian Progressive, which I love to bits but just don’t want to listen to just now :smiley:

Nick,
let’s open a thread on Italian Progressive: I have a few thing to tell about that time…

M

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I was thinking about music as a hobby. I could not think of anything else that gives me pleasure and interest literally every single day. Wife excluded!

Bruce

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By chance Radcliffe & Maconie played a decent track early this morning, Half Past France by John Cale from the album 1919. It was tremendous so I got up and stuck it on, on Qobuz.

It’s tenuous to describe it as new, but Cale has escaped me thus far. 1919 is a good in.

I usually do my listening at work through headphones so quite often my system stands idle for long periods which is rather shameful. I tend to listen at home during the winter months for some reason. Maybe because I like to have the patio doors open whenever it’s warm enough and when I play music I like a bit of volume to it which could disturb the neighbours. Tv is played quieter so it doesn’t disturb.
My music collection is in the region of 500 discs or so, a lot of which I’m not that bothered about currently and I’m always searching out new music to refresh my minuscule collection.
When I do decide to sit down and have an evening of hifi, I really do enjoy the experience, more rewarding than headphones I find. Before I got the PMC’s and the Nap 250dr, I listened through headphones quite a lot but now hardly at all as I’m quite satisfied with how my system sounds. I would like to add a ripper/server at some stage when funds allow but can’t see myself upgrading for a very long time, unless, heaven forbid, something becomes unserviceable…

I play music everyday on my system unless away for the weekend or on vacation, and lately that has not been happening at all, so lots of music! If traveling by car there is the CD player being used.

I enjoy music across multiple genre and enjoy exploring artists that I have never played. If I like the artist, they will be placed into the favorite category. I have been know to say, so much music and so little time, and the older I get the truer the sentiment.