How do you listen to music?

[cleanshaved]

How do you listen to music now with streaming etc been around for a while?

I still like to relax at home and put on a CD. The radio is on in the car or a CD for my drive to work.
Streaming some radio stations at home via my Andriod box and youtube video through the stereo.
I don't tend to listen to as much as I use to through my stereo unless I'm home alone. The wee wifey always say turn it down......turn it down
Ah that may be why I've not added to the system since I got it.

I bought my sound system about 22 years ago and have not added anything to it since.
In that time a lot has changed in the way people access and play music and what the systems support.
I was checking out some of the new amps and CD players. Streaming radio station ability built in, dobly 7.1....9.2 etc etc..... Wow who runs that may speakers and 2 subs?
My old amp is a 5.1 but I never did get a sub, due to space and my front floor speakers give a good base for surround sounds as is.

Maybe it's time to update something.
My unit is a Denon amp and CD player. Mission 700 series speakers.

 

[John Rose]

iPod touch with Apple Earpods.
Sometimes plug the iPod into the AUX input in the car during longer trips.

 

[captp]

Right now I listen on my phone (LG V30, one of the best headphone jack DACs available on a phone) with Sennheiser HD6xx (same headphone as the HD 650) running through a small headphone amp, solid state Objective 2. Waiting to get a Little Dot Mk2 tube amp that works; this will be my 3rd LD Mk2 in one week; hoping the 3rd one's a charm. First one worked beautifully for about 12 hours, 2nd one arrived DOA. Love the sound.

 

[Mick]

Still spin vinyl.

 

[Rushman2112]

By ear, as a rule...

Almost exclusively iTunes from the iMac, through some Bose Companion 5 speakers. If I want to annoy the neighbours, I'll Bluetooth to my Sony HT-CT800 Soundbar and crank it up. Works well with the inevitable Rush.

 

[captp]

Ever feel like an idiot for missing something simple? I just reconnected all cables and power cord, and it works. What a maroon. Now I'm waiting for a couple of upgraded driver tubes I ordered off Ebay; they're coming from Russia, so who knows when they'll get here.

 

[zed117]

Spotify on my phone, surround sound headset, set to highest quality download.

 

[cleanshaved]

Ever feel like an idiot for missing something simple? I just reconnected all cables and power cord, and it works. What a maroon. Now I'm waiting for a couple of upgraded driver tubes I ordered off Ebay; they're coming from Russia, so who knows when they'll get here.

Mate, I'm there with you in the idiot club and that is part why I started to look at new amps etc.

My left speaker was not working, tried moving the speaker wires and it kicked in and worked well for a while. Then it would not again when turned on. Huh.....so I tried re terminating the speaker cables. After all they have not been touched for 22 odd years.
I'm using acoustic research pro series 12 gauge speaker cables with banana plugs for the front. The ends had gone green, so cut it back......oh it was green inside cable on the outer part of the wire but a good core. So used some electronic contact cleaner for the new ends and that seemed to work well. It even improved the sound. A week later no left speaker again....(scratches head). I opened the amp and all seemed ok to my amerture eye. Contemplated getting some new speaker wires, spent time online looking.
Well yesterday was a eureka moment, I turned the system on to 5 speakers playing a CD to see if the left back worked. Yep the left back was not working as well.......so not the speaker wire or banana plugs.
It turned out that the RCA plug from the CD to the amp did not have a good contact. Guess moving the speaker cables was also moving the RCA cable........duh.

I still want the new cables and will upgrade the RCA cable as a minimum.
One other thing I played with was swapping the inwards cable to the speaker from the low frequency to the high frequency post. I'm sure I could hear a change in mid/high to base when doing this. Sounds like I could do with a jumper cable instead of the jumper plate the speaker came with. If I push on with the wire upgrade, then I"ll get extra cable and use them to wire up a couple of jumpers.

 

[cleanshaved]

Still spin vinyl.

There seems to be a trend of people going back to vinyl.

 

[MntnMan62]

No, you guys aren't idiots. You are smart and have a good ear. I have a few systems in the house that I have put together over the years for different reasons.

System 1: Living Room. I have a Marantz 5.1 receiver hooked up to Paradigm Atom v3 front speakers with a Cambridge Soundworks center channel (5 or 6 small speakers in there) a pair of Dayton rear speakers and a large 15" Cambridge Soundworks powered subwoofer. It's paired with a Samsung 52" LCD tv. Originally all the speakers were Cambridge Soundworks but the fronts were blown by my miserable sister in law. I had bought the Paradigms a while ago for my own stereo system and I blew the tweeters on them somehow. When the Cambridge Soundworks blew I found someone to fix the tweeters on the Paradigms and they've been in service for a couple years, if not longer. I love them and the Marantz is such a warm sounding receiver. We used to use a Philips CD player with a 5 CD carousel but we haven't used it in years, maybe well over a decade, but it is still hooked up. Instead we just plug our iPod into the aux jack and go to town.

System 2: Basement. A Harman Kardon 5.1 AV receiver powers a Klipsch surround system. Towers (two woofers and dome tweeter) up front, center channel, two rear channels, a large subwoofer and that his hooked up to a Samsung 65" LED tv. Here too we just plug an iPod into the Aux jack. And I am planning on buying a turntable for this system since all my albums are down there. The basement is combined as a place to watch tv, play video games (my son) and to listen to music. He has his basses and amps down there and my drums are down there as well. Some people say Klipsch speakers can be harsh but if you tune them properly I don't find that to be the case. They actually sound really good. Better than I thought they would sound.

System 3: My son's bedroom. This was my system that I bought for me to use for just listening to music in the basement before the basement was finished. It's powered by a Harman Kardon 2 channel stereo receiver with a pair of Silverline Audio Minuets and a Polk subwoofer (their bottom of the line version). While the sub isn't the greatest, I've got it tuned down because his bedroom is pretty small. So no boom or rumble from the sub and it really works nicely in that small space with the Silverlines which I absolutely adore. They are just so clear and crisp and real. They have rear firing ports so they are set about a foot or so away from the wall which creates a great soundstage. And my son loves listening to all that old fusion that I love so much. His favorites are Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius, Weather Report, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and lots of others. He also listens to some stuff that I find to be dubious at best. But he's 15 so I tolerate it. He also hooks up an iPod or his laptop and plays music that way.

Why did I provide all this detail that nobody cares about but me? I don't know. As I've said in other posts, I've got way too much time on my hands.

 

[cleanshaved]

No, you guys aren't idiots. You are smart and have a good ear. I have a few systems in the house that I have put together over the years for different reasons.

Yeah we may being a bit hard on ourselves for not spotting the problem sooner.

Why did I provide all this detail that nobody cares about but me? I don't know. As I've said in other posts, I've got way too much time on my hands.

I quite enjoyed reading your post.

 

[djh]

After a number of years of listening mostly to MP3 quality music, the bug got the better of me again and I bought a new system a few months back. A digital player from Cocktail Audio (which houses my CD collection as FLAC files) and a pair of Piega speakers. Having the player means that I don't need to store my CD collection in the sitting room and I am really enjoying being able to sit and listen to my music. The system also allows my wife to create playlists which will give her hours of uninterrupted music when I'm not around.

 

[Toothpick]

Apple Music. Or a radio app on the phone. Occasionally I’ll put a record on (vinyl). I haven’t bought a CD in....10 years?

 

[Canadian Mountain Man]

Why did I provide all this detail that nobody cares about but me? I don't know. As I've said in other posts, I've got way too much time on my hands.

I think some (maybe most) of us care. We seem to be a detailed oriented lot who likes this kind of stuff.

As for my own aural fixations. iphone or ipad as the platform, mostly Spotify as the source although there's still some stuff they don't have that I'll stream locally and played on a few JBL bluetooth speakers I have around the house.

 

[RandySp]

Headphones on the desktop and YouTube Music Videos.

 

[musicman1951]

I have a pretty nice stereo in my music/family room with some B&W surround speakers. (Both the wife and I were music teachers, so that gave us license to indulge a bit in this area) I generally listen to CD's through that system.

I have a so-so JBL bluetooth speaker I use with my phone for very short listens. I also have a decent Logitech speaker system for the computer I use occasionally. Sometimes I'm just to lazy to get off the computer chair and load the big system.

I do appreciate that mp3's and streaming music is of a lower quality. For pop songs the lesser quality doesn't bother me.

I have headphone sets but rarely use them. I have earbuds and hate them with a passion that burns like the fires of hell (well, OK: I just don't like them much).

 

[TexLaw]

A lot of it is in the car while driving. At home, I've pretty much gone the way of Sonos, which I like quite a bit. I can listen to much of the radio through it, stream through it, and even hook up my CD/vinyl player through it. The sound quality is quite good for the price, and it's stupidly simple to expand through the house.

 

[shavefan]

Sitting in my living room...

I recently recapped a pair of Norman Model Eight speakers and am amazed how good these simple 2 way, late '70s vintage boxes sound. Driving them with a Luxman 505u amplifier through a PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC. Music source basically is my CD collection ripped (AAIF) to iTunes on my MacBook Pro.

We have Sonos too, for the TV, but do play music through it too from time to time.

Edit, here's a vid I shot after the recap...

 

[davent]

There's a couple stereos i use.

The living room one is tube based, turntable and cd player. Preamp is tube, scratch built Grounded Grid Preamp, power amp is a diy push pull 6sl7/6v6 amp based on a schematic in Audioxpress, phono-pre and where this diy journey began, is another schematic from Audioxpress, designed by Norm Thagard and jfet based. Turntable, i need to get new motor mounts, Rega Planar 3, cd player is a Rotel RCD-965bx. Speakers i bought in the mid '70's are Tempest made by ESS so have a Heil Air Motion Transformer- tweeters. Have bunch of different headphone amps i've made, mostly based on various Burr-Brown chips.

Second system i made for my daughter but she decided a desk was more practical for her room then a piano and stereo system so i moved all that into the room with all my guitars and toys. For her i'd built a Gainclone chip amp, Gary Gallo designed preamp again from Audioxpress, an LP dvd player, she had lots of cassettes as a kid so there's now a working cassette deck for my old mixed tapes and a Dennis Collin(?) designed headphone amp i incorporated into the preamp box. Small bookshelf Paradigm speakers.

Grado SR80's

Working anywhere inside or outside the house and not able to crank the stereo or i just don't want to deal with people i use an old ipod shuffle with Etymotic ear buds to effectively isolate from annoyances. When Apple announced they were discontinuing the shuffle i bought two more to have as spares, that little toy is just about perfect for me. Needs a mono switch as i no longer have hearing in one ear but i made a work around that works just fine.

Also have an Single Ended transistor amp i started collecting parts for in 2005, i may yet get around to finishing.

dave

 

[dmshaver]

In the car I listened to an NPR music station.At home I stream it through my phone to the Bluetooth Monster brand speaker. I have a very large digital library on my Mac that I play through my Klipsch speakers. I have music playing the majority of the time when I’m home or in the car. I’m listening to some now.