Has Your Hobby Changed?

In the same vein, my music preferred genres has shifted as I’ve aged, limited 60’s to 80’s pop and rock largely restricted to SIRIUSXM in the car.

it’s now a lot more of quality mastered Diana Krall, Chris Botti, Michael Buble, Ella Fitzgerald, light jazz , Yo To Ma , and a ,liberal insertion of classical .

THAT IN TURN predicated an change in certain audio components and a change in audio listening room at home that favour this evolution , namely:

EQUIPMENT

- HARBETH 30.2XD speakers replacing prior prior rock genre floorstanders . The HARBETHs provide a best of class midrange and a better fit in a smaller room.

- MOON by SIMAUDIO 280D MIND2 streamer upgrade from BRYSTONs. Premium top of options build, performance and EZ app. The app utility’s a big chunk of digitsl satisfaction

- CARDAS CLEAR cables full loom upgrade from NORDOST FREY loom,,, with a specific choice of CLEAR REFLECTION speaker cables as a bespoke better choice to tame a digital “brightness” and digital “edge” now in my new heaby glass walled listening room.

AUDIO LISTENING ROOM

I migrated out of my basement man-cave and left it strictly for a discrete 7.1 HT system. Now it’s resident in a sunshine flooded comfy LR with a lot of glass with its new audio first reflection warts …but it’s better in lifestyle joy for me now and in line with my new fave music genre and comfort in its new arena paired with a premium scotch or cognac . …

Congrats on reaching your pot-o-gold at the end of this audio rainbow. I'm in the same boat as you and finally have no desire to analytically listen anymore and instead, concentrate on the music.

I've been thinking of starting a thread for some time on the very subject you brought up, alluding to it in one way or another on other threads. It's times like this when I can finally appreciate the term, diminishing returns. 

The odd thing is, while no longer chasing components, I find myself spending less time listening as a means of analyzing, reducing the actual amount of listening for pleasure, as I had to conflate the two. Now I listen when I want to and not when I have to.

All the best,
Nonoise

2 weeks ago, on May 15th, i retired after 49 years in Automotive Retail.

i am very curious to see how this change in my life and time management will affect my hifi/music loving hobby. now i can listen as much as i like, before i worked 55 hours a week, 6 days a week. will my hobby be needed to deal with my stress in the same way, or will i lean away from it?

i expect it to become a bigger part of my day as i love to listen to music in my system. i have spent the last 30 years seriously creating the perfect place to listen, and assembling a system and music collection to satisfy my needs.

we will have to see. i will let life and my feelings happen as it comes. so far i am joyful with my freedom of choice and really enjoying my ability to extend listening sessions without limits. never got so much before from the hobby.

as far as ’gear slut’, ’room set-up focus’ and ’music focus’, i’ve always done all three.. but one change will be staying revenue neutral, i can buy new gear, but being retired, i need to also sell something to pay for it.

Dear mikelavigne,

CONGRATULATIONS! I say that as someone who spent "only" 10 years (two 5 year tours) in the car biz, and I retired last fall. 49 years is amazing...I couldn’t have done that (though I did some digging and learned you were in upper management, and I was just a grunt salesman).

I have followed your audio evolution with great vicarious interest, from the original article (Pos Feedback?) detailing the design and building of your listening room, to all the subsequent changes in it and your system. I have marveled not only at the time and energy invested (you are much better at A-B’ing and gear evals than I could ever be), but the investment too.

My system is modest, but with more free time I find that my interests have shifted back again to what they have always been primarily: listening to the music, and then doing many other things. I have never been a "gearhead" (and I don’t use the term disparagingly), making constant changes to my system, for several reasons: 1) budget, and 2) I am lazy and easily frustrated by comparing gear and making decisions. That doesn’t mean I don’t aspire to improving my system as I can, but gear is just the means to the end. I do wish I could figure out how to make an extra $20K a year very part-time from home, to pay the audio pusherman!


My listening may become more seasonal too, as when the weather is great, I want to be outside much of the day. Much more music listening and other "indoors sports" like cooking during the crappy cold, wet months. It is nice now to be able to listen during the day as loud and as much as I want when my wife is at work. In the evening, that’s a no-go, as my listening room is next to the living room.

So, you have reached a point where you have a world-class system and room, and have worked hard to achieve that. I hope that just listening to amazing music repro is satisfying, because you’ve reached Shangri-La maybe? I’d gladly make the trek from the Olympic Peninsula over to enjoy it with you! I’d bring lunch and libations. 😎 CHEERS

Retirement can open doors for a lot of folks. You finally have the time, if you have the inclination, to analyze your systems sound. Not necessarily a good thing though if you seriously love your music. The trick, I think, is to be able to balance your interest in audio and music and keep them separate. I’m lucky now to have arrived where I can afford to buy anything I would want, but every time I think about the audio function I really can’t find anything that would be worth having to maintain my interest in music. I’m still buying new music though. :-)