Anyone else like to Listen in the Dark?

Take it one step further and cover (or better, disconnect) all those LED power lamps - I swear it will add 10' of depth to your soundstage!

Oh yes, I believe that our minds anticipate the effect of the room on sound. With the lights out we don't have as much conflict between the recordings acoustic venue and our own listening room. Bofus is right on, the less distraction the greater the ability to get lost in the music.

From a neurological point of view, there is a very good reason for this: the brain's visual centers have many orders of magnitude more cortex dedicated to them than do the aural centers. Closing your eyes (or listening in the dark) shuts down an enormous amount of neural processing, allowing your brain to spend a lot higher percentage of its energy on listening. Two other effects I've noticed from this phenomenon:
1) Music videos aren't about the music at all; they're about the video.
2) A lot of symphony-goers have never tried shutting their eyes during a performance, and when you do, they automatically assume you are sleeping. I close my eyes quite often, but never to sleep. You would be amazed how many people will ask you how your nap was.

I use only a lava lamp. And I find that it's not just the dark but also the night. Music is better late.

Listening in the dark sometimes is a great meditation of sorts!! Especially when I pull the cover off the SFS 80 and watch those kt90's glow and the glow from the ARC and
Clearaudio phono... It is a light show...
Lovely!!
Enjoy,
Joe