How isolated is your hi-fi?


I'm thinking of dedicated rooms, not component stands. I was looking at some of the "All Out Assault" rooms in the virtual systems section, and while some of them are impressive they are all isolated. It occurs to me that if I had a dedicated room I'd probably never use it because I'd be sitting in there by myself. I use our family room and the hi-fi is just something we make room for. It isn't the perfect accoustic setup, but my wife and I enjoy listening to it. I take the noise of the ice maker or banging pots and pans from the kitchen in the next room in stride.

Anyone else ever consider this scenario?
grimace
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Hiya Grimace, at my oldhouse, we had the "theatre room". Acoustic panels, heavy motorized curtains, 7 surround speakers (all wilson) two risers, solid core doors. It was great when we had occaisional friends over, it was great to watch movies in, but it cost me close to 100k with everything. Well, that;s a lot of darn movie nights out, even with dinner. Then it was above the garage, so it was isolated and a trek from the kitchen. So in the living room, eventually I bought a big plasma, new wilsons, amps, etc, because that was the easy place to laze around, watch tv, and have music during dinner and working around the house, another 40k. I was really anal about food, etc, in the room. The house got bought by friends, and they used the theatre room alot for about 3 months, and then gradually they hardly used it.

Flash forward to new house, a dedicated room already pre-wired and separate from everything. Didn't even bother setting it up, made it a guest bedroom, and drumset hideaway for my daughter. We have my system in the living room. Everybody gets to use it, everybody gets to hear it, which can be a drawback because... everybody gets to use it, and everybody hears it. However it is nice to just have the fireplace, sit and play a game or read book and listen. Or have my main system as background when we eat, and just laze around with the kids, the dogs, and wife.

I think if this is somebody's absolute passion, that they want to spend all their free time listening to their system, or having a great home theatre, then they should have a dedicated listening room. Other family members can use it if they want, but for somebody who wants to go and shut themselves away for a couple of hours, it could be a sanctuary and haven.

So I would say it is a matter of priority and money. Sometimes my wife wants to watch tv in the kitchen, and she can't because I have the stereo on, or vice versa. I can just say for me, I spent too much time isolating myself and hence, didn't use the dedicated room near as much as I use this one.

Cheers!
Chris
Chris' recount brings up a theme I think about sometimes. In an eccentric hobby, we have to strive to be really honest about what we want in order to be happy.
Our stereo room is our living room - not the other way around. It works just fine for us that way.

Arthur