How do you listen to music

[Vivek Batra]

Hi Vivek,

Thanks for starting this interesting thread.
For me listening to music has kind of come a full circle. Started off with Cassettes in the 80s, transitioned to CDs in the 90s and later to MP3 on USB/Laptop for most of the 21st century, followed by streaming using Apple Music/Spotify for the last couple of years.
Having gone through the above cycle, and listening to few of the dedicated systems playing via physical media last year at my friends places, I was drawn back again towards the lure of the physical formats.

Hence I started putting together a preowned system for LPs/CDs/Cassettes once again as a result of which, now I have got back to enjoying listening to the music being played via these physical media formats. This has also transitioned my listening preference to hear out the complete album rather than jumping across numbers which was more because of the convenience that the online streaming provided.

Since I do have a limited set of the physical media, I do continue to listen to online streaming too, due to their ability to create nicely curated playlists.
On weekends as I have free time on my hand, I prefer to listen to the physical media when I can sit back and relax, but during weekends, while I am working, in the evenings I prefer streaming. This way I feel I am getting the best of both worlds.

I guess the liberty to hop around given by streaming is not good at all the time. Going back to physical media for me is bit hard. Becuase my only source is streaming from Spotify/Tidal. Making playlists doesn't help much. Lets see, I am just trying to be more patient and assuming the playback is from cassettes where skipping is not possible

 

[moktan]

Though I have a modest dedicated room for listening I find myself going there less and less. Maybe when some friend comes over. But if I want to laze around in the garden or the verandah listening to some Neil Young while a soft monsoon breeze caresses me- as I am doing now - my source is the iPhone and speakers is the Marshall Kilburn.

 

[Vivek Batra]

Though I have a modest dedicated room for listening I find myself going there less and less. Maybe when some friend comes over. But if I want to laze around in the garden or the verandah listening to some Neil Young while a soft monsoon breeze caresses me- as I am doing now - my source is the iPhone and speakers is the Marshall Kilburn. View attachment 46881

Sir you are privileged to live there and on the top love the music. Listening to any kinda music in the lap of nature is a bliss in itself.

 

[arunkvivek]

Change yo

Though I have a modest dedicated room for listening I find myself going there less and less. Maybe when some friend comes over. But if I want to laze around in the garden or the verandah listening to some Neil Young while a soft monsoon breeze caresses me- as I am doing now - my source is the iPhone and speakers is the Marshall Kilburn. View attachment 46881

Please change your HFV handle to Onida. I envy you so much!

 

[Gerry_the_Merry]

I guess the liberty to hop around given by streaming is not good at all the time. Going back to physical media for me is bit hard. Becuase my only source is streaming from Spotify/Tidal. Making playlists doesn't help much. Lets see, I am just trying to be more patient and assuming the playback is from cassettes where skipping is not possible

Add a top class transport, buddy. You can limit PC audio to tweaking, and listen properly to CDs.

 

[Vivek Batra]

Add a top class transport, buddy. You can limit PC audio to tweaking, and listen properly to CDs.

If Luxman were making any I would have may be by now.

 

[connectingsrikanth]

I listen to music mostly on CDs. I have tons of CDs .

 

[Mahi]

I listen to music mostly on CDs. I have tons of CDs .

Hi brother you have any extra copies of CDs??

 

[RRR]

I have a few cds i dont need. Pm if interested with your choice. Cheers

 

[firearm12]

The more hifi we get in terms of hardware, lesser we enjoy the badly recorded tracks (that we used to love earlier). This is so because we now have tasted something better and want all music to pe played like that. All this leads to chaos in the end and we end up listening to sound instead of music. Most recorded music is not intended to be played on audiophile systems. This is a dilemma for audiophiles. There is no easy way out but we can try couple of things.

1) close eyes while listening to music tonget detached from the sight of equipment
2) get a better source than online streaming services, play only wav files ripped from cds or cds. This will surely help.
3) remove laptop from audio ecosystem and get a dedicated streamer or cd player. This helps psycologically correcting our minds that we are not listening to digital. When we speak digital, only laptop and mobile comes into our minds automatically.
4) all speakers and systems are not designed to play all kind of music. Understanding and being content is the key.
5) get a small boombox or radio or better same equipment that you enjoyed years back and play occasionally on it to fulfill nostalgic desires, you will suddenly realise how bad they sounded and question how did you enjoy that sound in ealier days.

If your mind asks to skip tracks then need to find out whats wrong, if its digital harshness then there is no cure.

PS: btw i am one of the most discontented person in this hobby. So i am not the best person to answer but i felt like answering.

 

[connectingsrikanth]

Hi brother you have any extra copies of CDs??

I have a few doubles.... Pm with your choice.

 

[raghupb]

My music listening these days are mostly .... it playing in the background.
With me sitting diagonally across a L-shaped section.
Throw in a Spotify playlist or an entire album from HDD and just let it play.

The rare times I do sit in "MLP" I listen to albums or collections from an artist.
Sometimes I turn on the tube pre + SS + sub. Different mood different chain.
If playing from the Parasound chain, I sometimes tweak tone controls for some material.
Many a time I don't even play out on KEFs, just the MA pups.
(See signature for chain/s)

Cheers,
Raghu

 

[Vivek Batra]

I have identified few things that are troubling
me

1. I enjoy background music more than sitting in front of the system.
2. Don't turn on your system if you are not sure what you are going to listen. Now I make a playlist during the week and turn on my system when I have few songs lined up.
3. Be at peace when going to listen.
4. Most of the time, late night is the best time to enjoy.
5. Phone is a very big distraction. Keep it away.
6. Don't be over critical. Enjoy what you have rather than cribbing all the time.
7. Listen to.music what you like,not the one that sounds best on your system.

I am trying to follow above to actually enjoy the music.

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

I listen to music while focusing on the music and not doing anything else, preferably with eyes closed. To me there is no point listening to music while doing other tasks because then I don't really listen to or enjoy the music. In my view music can only be truly enjoyed this way. I don't use any streaming services, everything is off my HDDs. I don't typically go searching for new music, I listen to the songs I enjoy that are already on my HDD. Sometimes I will come across a new track that I like so I will add that to my HDD. There is a regular playlist I listen to on a daily basis, it's about 100 songs and I thoroughly enjoy listening to it. I don't listen to music any other time as then it is just background noise. The time spent on music everyday is not much but the small amount of time that is spent on it is greatly enjoyed, and that's the way I've been listening to music for over a decade. This is of course just the way I enjoy music and what listening to music means to me.

 

[firearm12]

3. Be at peace when going to listen.

you are on right track. It’s very important to be at peace while listening to music otherwise one won’t be at peace.

 

[flat_listener]

The lost art of deep listening:
Most of us do it while we’re scrolling through Twitter, disinfecting doorknobs, obsessively washing our hands or romancing lovers permitted within our COVID-free zones. We rip our favorite tracks from their natural long-player habitat, drop them into playlists and forget the other songs, despite their being sequenced to be heard in order.
It doesn’t have to be this way.

Stoners will probably tell you to consume an edible an hour prior. Scotch is wonderful. (LSD is illegal.) None of it is necessary. Mindfulness is essential. Light a candle or not. Doesn’t matter, but dimmed light will change the environment for the better.

I actually listen from start to finish... with intention, like you were watching a movie or reading a novel.
The point is to listen with your ears in the same the way you read with your eyes, to absorb the flavor as you would over your taste buds.

 

[Sushant Sharma]

The lost art of deep listening:
Most of us do it while we’re scrolling through Twitter, disinfecting doorknobs, obsessively washing our hands or romancing lovers permitted within our COVID-free zones. We rip our favorite tracks from their natural long-player habitat, drop them into playlists and forget the other songs, despite their being sequenced to be heard in order.
It doesn’t have to be this way.

Stoners will probably tell you to consume an edible an hour prior. Scotch is wonderful. (LSD is illegal.) None of it is necessary. Mindfulness is essential. Light a candle or not. Doesn’t matter, but dimmed light will change the environment for the better.

I actually listen from start to finish... with intention, like you were watching a movie or reading a novel.
The point is to listen with your ears in the same the way you read with your eyes, to absorb the flavor as you would over your taste buds.

man, I enjoyed reading that and probably the funniest thing I have read for a while. thanks

 

[Deleted member 15865]

I listen to music while focusing on the music and not doing anything else, preferably with eyes closed. To me there is no point listening to music while doing other tasks because then I don't really listen to or enjoy the music. In my view music can only be truly enjoyed this way. I don't use any streaming services, everything is off my HDDs. I don't typically go searching for new music, I listen to the songs I enjoy that are already on my HDD. Sometimes I will come across a new track that I like so I will add that to my HDD. There is a regular playlist I listen to on a daily basis, it's about 100 songs and I thoroughly enjoy listening to it. I don't listen to music any other time as then it is just background noise. The time spent on music everyday is not much but the small amount of time that is spent on it is greatly enjoyed, and that's the way I've been listening to music for over a decade. This is of course just the way I enjoy music and what listening to music means to me.

Wow, are you for real, @Decadent_Spectre? Or did you time port back to the early 00’s? How do you manage that kind of self-discipline? Don’t get me wrong, I am not mocking. I am in awe. I too listen to entire CD during my sit-down sessions, but on other occasions I allow myself to explore randomly through streaming services. Also do background listening to internet radio quite a bit. I know how rewarding it is to intently listen to an entire album end to end. Or watch that movie without a break. Or finish reading a book once started. Things that were so normal and came naturally till say a decade ago. But takes effort now.

 

[Decadent_Spectre]

Wow, are you for real, @Decadent_Spectre? Or did you time port back to the early 00’s? How do you manage that kind of self-discipline? Don’t get me wrong, I am not mocking. I am in awe. I too listen to entire CD during my sit-down sessions, but on other occasions I allow myself to explore randomly through streaming services. Also do background listening to internet radio quite a bit. I know how rewarding it is to intently listen to an entire album end to end. Or watch that movie without a break. Or finish reading a book once started. Things that were so normal and came naturally till say a decade ago. But takes effort now.

To be honest it just comes naturally to me because I don't see the point of "casual" listening. I do not listen to full CDs though, I pick songs which I like and make a playlist. As for streaming, I don't know, it just doesn't appeal to me. Years ago when Pandora was new and available in India I tired it out and didn't like it. I do have a Spotify account but it only has a few songs from my regular playlist and it was more of a curiosity since it came to India after so many years. The things that take effort now are because of what people themselves have done and what our society has become, but that is a topic for another forum, not one dedicated to audio and video. Your signature is probably one of the most apt ones I've ever seen on an audio/video forum. I want to move, definitely move.

 

[moktan]

I go to my dedicated listening room perhaps once or twice a week. The average time I spend is about the time it takes to listen to two albums or the same album twice. I don’t have a huge collection of CDs and records but I think what I have is enough.
Most of the times, the music I listen to is motivated by the excellent discussions in the jazz thread of this forum. I like to read up the reviews , the backstory etc behind the album and then listen intently- after all that’s what I am here for. Sometimes I listen to the same album or the artist for a month. Jazz in that sense has a very protean sound in which one is always discovering new things. This month it’s Hank Mobley’s excellent Soul Station. For the music I listen to , I am satisfied with my system so no upgrades for me.
I like to discover new music. And for that I read reviews in sites like The Guardian and what sites like allmusic email regularly.
Youtube and Apple music is great that way. I was happy with Apple Music but took a YouTube music subscription because only they seemed to have a certain Jerry Garcia album with the great Nicky Hopkins on keyboards. This liquid rendition of Dylan’s Visions of Joanna- I had posted a link in the jazz thread -was my staple night listening for many months. It’s a long , winding 18 minute song and invariably I would be asleep before it’s termination.
Rock Music was very much a part of growing up and I regularly exchange music with friends. This is listened to on the phone and iPad or the Marshall Kilburn. Recently a friend who is a physicist wrote to thank that I helped him discover The Velvet Underground back in the day and that a certain album by the band changed his outlook on life.
While that same may sound farfetched , I am absolutely sure the said friend wasn’t exaggerating.