I’m lucky enough to have a dedicated listening room.  After I got married, my stereo bounced around to a bunch of different places, even (horrors!) getting boxed up for a couple of years.  Most of those rooms weren’t optimal – usually a place where the TV was always on, hence little opportunity to really listen, so it was off to the iPod.  Which wasn’t bad at all – certainly better than nothing, but not the same as having a space where you could settle in and just LISTEN.  Then, about 15 years ago, we did the basement over so the kids (and their friends, TBH) could have a place to hang.  Part of the plan included a room that was perfect for listening, where I could put my speakers exactly where they should be, and LOTS of wall space for vinyl.  And yeah, you could crank it up without any complaints from everyone else.

Recently, though, I had a chance to do the same thing upstairs in a room off the kitchen.  My kids are out of the house, and it became more convenient – and nicer – to walk down the hall rather than down to my underground lair.  Basically.  This room was a blank slate – it wasn’t as private as my old listening room downstairs, but I was able to turn it into a comfortable place that could double as my home office as well as a music room.  However, as part of the deal with my wife, the bulk of my vinyl collection had to remain downstairs 🙁 but all of my vinyl has been digitized to my NAS drive, I can access that over my Sonos. 🙂 

The whole experience has been a revival of my yearly back-to-college ritual – pack up the stereo at the end of the summer, set it up in the dorm room, get everything where you want it to be, tweak things here and there.  There’s that sense of newness, the promise of an amazing year, and the social bonding around music (parties, late night listening) that never gets old.  The vinyl revival taps into those very human feelings, which is why it’s lasted longer than the most jaded techies thought it would.  It’s easy to just call up a Spotify playlist and listen, and that (still) is an amazing feat, but the ritual of putting on an LP, or even a CD, and sitting down to listen is something that, once experienced, never leaves you.  Now, please excuse me as I slip into something more comfortable…