Actually, AK is the perfect excuse for having more than one system!
My "dedicated listening" time is usually earlier in the day/evening, when I crank up the good system in the living room. My AK time is usually late at night, after my wife has gone to sleep, when I can't crank it (because the sound would keep her awake) and when I'll use headphones anyway. Then --as I'm doing right now, at nearly 1:00 a.m.-- I'll sit in my office-room and use a secondary system with headphones, while reading and posting on AK! Works well enough for me. :yes: :
Me too. I work nights and get home way into O-Dark Thirty. I was frustrated that I could not listen to my main system in the living room as much as I would like without disturbing others around me, so I finally decided to do something about it.
I put what I think is a pretty good setup in my small, crowded, computer / hobby room. It is not the ideal listening space but it's where I wind up spending a lot of my time on the computer and doing projects. I figured since I spend so much time there, then that is where I should put some of my better gear.
I added a Jolida 502 BRC integrated amp (KT88 tube based sweetness), MHZS CD88E tube based CD player, Marantz PMD800 Pro Receiver, and a Thorens TD165 Turntable. Speakers are a great sounding pair of vintage Marantz HD880’s.
For those times when I can't use the speakers I use a pair of good headphones instead.
At times I just want to go to bed when I get home, but want to listen to something before I go to sleep.
For that I added a good nighttime setup next to the bed.
I have a pair of AKG-K701 headphones with Little Dot Mk IV SE tube based headphone amp (more tube based sweetness FTW).
Music sources are a Marantz 5001 CD player and a vintage Yamaha T-1 tuner. The T1 may get swapped out for my T7. The T1 lights are very cool to look at but too distracting in a dark room at night. The T7 lighting is more subdued and it also has presets.
I also have a ipod that I have loaded up with lots of audio books that I plug into this system and wind up listening to quite a bit.
This system is great and I enjoy it for about an hour on many nights before falling asleep.
I guess my point to this. It does not have to be “Reverse AudioKarma”. You can still have your main living room system for serious listening (I still do) but why not have other system(s) adapted to where you spend your other time. They don’t have to be the best setups but try to have something that you can enjoy. You can adapt and improve these systems as you go along. I know I did and now I am enjoying it more than ever.
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