Upgrading My Music Experience

There's more to the hi-fi listening experience than the sound and the gear and sources that produce it.

Everyone talks about "the room" with its reflections, interferences and standing waves. It's a wonder we can hear anything really. But I'm not thinking about that.

Having a comfortable chair or sofa to sit and listen is important. If you think hi-fi is expensive, try buying a well-made armchair or sofa.

There's also the visual experience: what are you looking at when the music is playing?

And there's another one, which doesn't have a name, but is something to do with not making the best - whatever that means - of one's vast music collection. All those CDs that haven't been played in two or three years, and worse, all those CDs on Qobuz I haven't even found out are there. People with wall-high collections of vinyl will know the feeling of not even remembering they had that album. All that music, and we're ignoring it.

I thought far too much about this stuff (so you don't have to). As a result, I have

a) organised a wi-fi extender for the Hegel H120 so it can use Air Play and I can update it without running LAN cable all over the downstairs 

b) removed all the CDs from the top of the Kallax and put a vase of flowers between the amp and the left speakers 

c) spaced the speakers an extra six inches apart (makes a difference to the sound, really) 

d) turned up the subwoofer a tad (makes even more of a difference to the sound) 

e) accepted that at any given time, I will be playing 1 of about 150 CDs / artists, which is 15% of my collection, hence 

f) I have pruned some of the CDs from the downstairs boxes into the box-room archive 

g) made a directory of the pop / rock / electronic music I have ripped to AAC / MP3 that isn't in the CD boxes, and pointed the iOS Music Streamer at that 

h) resolved to play my Favourites on Qobuz more often 

i) put subscribing to Apple Music (for the classical service) on the to-do list 

j) appreciated that the Sonos app is an excellent consolidator for streaming services and files (the new search looks a lot better)

Which is a lot cheaper than getting a Roon subscription, less time-consuming than ripping everything to FLAC, buying another set of headphones, or upgrading the gear.

See, the problem wasn't the gear. That's as good as I'm going to get for the money.

The problem was the music collection, or rather, the way I was using it. All that music sitting there sulking because I wasn't playing it. No! said Jacob Obrecht, he's not playing Jefferson Airplane again! He did that two weeks ago! What about rotation? Diversity? Equality of playing time?

Anyway, here's a photograph.