...well, kinda.
I've been mulling over this for a while, and the simple truth is that I never enter the mancave to sit down and listen to music any more. I still listen to music elsewhere, generally while other things are happening too, but it's been literally months since I fired up even a single track on the "good" system and I can no longer justify the waste of space. The room will shortly be repurposed as a play room for my 2 little girls, and the mancave will be no more.
The funny thing is that having made this decision I feel more relief than sadness. As I remarked to an audiophile friend, I think I've let myself fall too far behind, and the main system as it stands is a relic of what I wanted in the 90s and early 00s rather than a true reflection of what I want now. The room itself was never great acoustically and that's a huge factor, it was a constant disappointing struggle, but having an area where I lock myself away no longer makes sense to me either. Most of my listening is now done via Spotify on the system in a small area beside the kitchen, it's where we do most of our day-to-day living, and while the sonics aren't high end they're good enough to surprise me regularly and to play almost everything in an enjoyable way. On the rare occasions I've walked into the mancave and shut the door, it feels like a massive step backwards in time. OK, part of it is the fact that my only real source in there is CDs, but even the act of sitting alone in front of big speakers doesn't excite me these days. It's time for something else.
Even though I'm leaving the room behind I'm actually confident I'll listen to more music overall, but my major concern is large-scale classical works. They work ok in the current system (B&W 685S2, Wadia 151 Powerdac), but not well enough for thorough exploration of new music. The challenge now is to find a musically satisfying system that's family friendly, with speakers that can work well close to walls but fill quite a large space beyond, but it's unlikely to be anything approaching high-end (not that I've ever had a really high-end system anyway). I'm starting to think that I'll enjoy the hobby just as much at more affordable levels, rather than constantly trying to reach beyond my means to the next step. I'll be moving from "what's best" to "what's good enough", but maybe that's ok.
Despite my general positivity, this marks a pretty serious deviation from a journey that started while I was still at secondary school, and a part of me will struggle to let go. But like Arnie, I'll be back.
I've been mulling over this for a while, and the simple truth is that I never enter the mancave to sit down and listen to music any more. I still listen to music elsewhere, generally while other things are happening too, but it's been literally months since I fired up even a single track on the "good" system and I can no longer justify the waste of space. The room will shortly be repurposed as a play room for my 2 little girls, and the mancave will be no more.
The funny thing is that having made this decision I feel more relief than sadness. As I remarked to an audiophile friend, I think I've let myself fall too far behind, and the main system as it stands is a relic of what I wanted in the 90s and early 00s rather than a true reflection of what I want now. The room itself was never great acoustically and that's a huge factor, it was a constant disappointing struggle, but having an area where I lock myself away no longer makes sense to me either. Most of my listening is now done via Spotify on the system in a small area beside the kitchen, it's where we do most of our day-to-day living, and while the sonics aren't high end they're good enough to surprise me regularly and to play almost everything in an enjoyable way. On the rare occasions I've walked into the mancave and shut the door, it feels like a massive step backwards in time. OK, part of it is the fact that my only real source in there is CDs, but even the act of sitting alone in front of big speakers doesn't excite me these days. It's time for something else.
Even though I'm leaving the room behind I'm actually confident I'll listen to more music overall, but my major concern is large-scale classical works. They work ok in the current system (B&W 685S2, Wadia 151 Powerdac), but not well enough for thorough exploration of new music. The challenge now is to find a musically satisfying system that's family friendly, with speakers that can work well close to walls but fill quite a large space beyond, but it's unlikely to be anything approaching high-end (not that I've ever had a really high-end system anyway). I'm starting to think that I'll enjoy the hobby just as much at more affordable levels, rather than constantly trying to reach beyond my means to the next step. I'll be moving from "what's best" to "what's good enough", but maybe that's ok.
Despite my general positivity, this marks a pretty serious deviation from a journey that started while I was still at secondary school, and a part of me will struggle to let go. But like Arnie, I'll be back.
