Rethinking My Listening Space

It took me a while to realize that the problem with my hi-fi system wasn’t really the gear.

For a long time, I just assumed I was listening to music less because life got busier – work, family, and all the usual stuff that seems to get in the way. But honestly, I think the bigger issue is simpler than that: my listening space just doesn’t fit my life anymore. I still have a very good hi-fi setup, but I can barely use it. And that got me thinking about how much the room itself, the “accessibility” and convenience of use of our systems, affects the way we want to listen to music.

Looking back, I also realize I spent years thinking “better hi-fi” just meant “more gear.” Which, in hindsight, is a pretty easy trap to fall into.

I started with headphones. Then I wanted speakers. The speakers needed a better amp, which led to sources, DACs, cables, and so on. None of that felt silly at the time. It just felt like the next logical step. But a lot of it was really driven by this idea that the next purchase would finally be the one that made everything click. One upgrade after another, always just one piece of gear away from perfect sound.

If you’ve been into this hobby for a while, you probably know exactly what I mean.

How It All Started

My first “real” audiophile speakers were a pair of Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus 804s that I bought used in 2003. That was when I got back into hi-fi after a long break, although the story actually starts much earlier.

Back in the late 1980s, I got completely fascinated by the AKG K1000 headphones. They were strange and brilliant at the same time. Instead of being run from a normal headphone amp, they were meant to be powered by a speaker amp. My dream was to pair them with an Accuphase E-206 integrated amp. I remembered having seen this combo featured in a German hi-fi magazine.

Of course, like a lot of dreams when you’re young, that one had to wait. University, family, and plain old money problems came first, so hi-fi stayed more of a dream than a reality for a while. Then, around 2001, I made the mistake of picking up a hi-fi magazine again. The audiophile bug returned almost immediately. A year later, I found a pristine pair of AKG K-1000s from a Swiss studio. The E-206 was already hard to find by then, so I bought its newer sibling, the almost-new Accuphase E-212.

After all those years, I finally had the system I’d imagined. But that feeling lasted about five minutes. I immediately started wondering whether it made sense to “waste” such a great amplifier just for headphones. And that led me to the B&W Nautilus 804s (after all, many audiophiles said B&W plus Accuphase were the thing to own), which started an upgrade path that lasted more than twenty years. Yeah, a bit ridiculous in hindsight.

The Upgrade Trap

The B&W speakers sounded great, but after a while I decided they didn’t have enough bass. Today I’d probably look at the room first, or speaker placement, or maybe even my own expectations. Back then, though, I just went straight for a bigger amp. I replaced the E-212 with an Accuphase E-408, which was the biggest hi-fi purchase I’d made up to that point.

And that was really the start of a pattern.

Next came an Accuphase DP-55 CD player, which I later modified. Then I added a battery-powered external DAC. After that I replaced the B&Ws with a DIY speaker project, and then those got swapped for MartinLogan reQuest electrostats. Please don’t make me list all the other audio purchases I made (and later sold) along the way. The same thing kept happening with headphones, DACs, cables, and all the little “maybe this will be the upgrade” purchases over the years.

Looking back, I replaced way more gear than I needed to. I was chasing the feeling that one more upgrade would finally make everything feel complete and I would have more time for my music, ignoring how that newer gear would actually fit my living situation.

I don’t regret the journey, though. I learned a lot about audio, room acoustics, and properly matching gear. I also got to hear equipment I could only dream about when I was younger. But I did learn one important thing: you’re never done. If you keep waiting for the next upgrade before you enjoy your system, you’ll never actually enjoy it.

When Your Home Suddenly Changes

Eventually, life changed. I got divorced and later remarried. My wife and I moved to a smaller apartment, which meant making some compromises. When my MartinLogan speakers broke and weren’t worth repairing, I replaced them with ELAC Vela 404 loudspeakers. That’s one of the few purchases I’ve never regretted.

Then my living situation changed again in 2025 when my wife started her wellness spa business, operating from our home. It’s been a good thing overall, but it also turned our living room into some sort of a treatment space and a reception area for clients. So yeah, not exactly ideal for loud music. By the time I get home from work, the space is usually in “wind down” mode rather than “sit down and listen to a record” mode.

The furniture changed too. It now serves the spa first, which means I no longer have the room layout I need for proper stereo imaging, and I’ve lost the dedicated listening spot I used to have. So while I still technically own a high-quality loudspeaker system, it now barely gets used.

Headphones Solve Only Half the Problem

Luckily, my headphone setup is excellent. I use Stax SR-009s with a High-Amp Antares electrostatic amp. With a good recording, the clarity and realism are just amazing. Honestly, I don’t feel like I’m missing all that much compared to speakers.

But headphones don’t fix everything.

A lot of older recordings, and quite a few vinyl masterings were mixed with extreme left-right separation. Speakers naturally blend that a bit in the room, but headphones can make it feel more exaggerated, which gets tiring after a while.

Still, that’s not really my main problem anymore. The bigger issue is much more basic: I don’t have a comfortable place to sit.

The sofa got replaced by a small table for spa customers. The chairs that are left are practical, sure, but not exactly where I want to spend an evening with Bill Evans or Miles Davis. Over time, I noticed I was starting to find reasons not to listen.

Even using the Stax system has become more of a hassle than it should be. I keep the headphones in a cupboard to protect them from dust, because there isn’t really a proper place for them on my rack. Every time I want to listen, I have to take everything out, plug in the cables, find somewhere to sit, and then pack it all away again. That’s a lot of friction just to listen to music. Too much, really.

I’m Frustrated. Should I Sell Everything?

My first thought was to sell everything and start over with something much smaller. And honestly, that did make sense. A good closed-back headphone, a small DAC/headphone amp, and a laptop or smartphone as a source would let me listen almost anywhere. I wouldn’t have to depend on the living room at all.

I started looking at headphones like the Dan Clark Audio E3, the Noire series, and the Sennheiser HD 820. For a while, I thought that might be the answer.

Then I realized I was doing the same thing again: trying to solve a practical problem by buying more gear. But what I really needed was to fix the listening environment. So I am seriously going to address that now. Yeah, in a marriage you need to compromise sometimes.

My Small Bedroom Listening Corner Experiment

There’s a small corner in our bedroom that was originally supposed to be a workspace, but I’ve barely used it. One night I looked at that empty corner and thought: why not turn it into a headphone listening spot?

The Stax amp and DAC don’t need much room, and there’s already a small IKEA work desk there. It’s not exactly the kind of setup audiophiles dream about, but it might be comfortable enough to get me listening again.

Getting the Music There

As soon as I had the idea, another question popped up: how do I actually get my music library into the bedroom without making everything a pain?

My main digital source is an Eversolo DMP-A8 (advertisement link) in the living room. One option is to use my MacBook Air, run a UPnP server on it, and use it as the endpoint for the Eversolo.

In theory, that should be simple enough. I could access my music library, connect the MacBook to my SMSL PL200 CD player and DAC over USB, and use its balanced outputs for the High-Amp Antares. The SMSL deserves more use anyway — I hardly play CDs now, but it’s a very capable DAC and works well with the Antares. Technically, I don’t expect major problems. The real question is convenience.

And that’s the part that matters. Once listening becomes a lot of work, I do it less and less. Fetching the MacBook, launching software, connecting cables, dealing with the occasional network issue — all of that can turn a relaxing session into a bit of a chore. So the lesson is pretty obvious by now: if a system isn’t easy to use, it won’t get used very often.

That’s also why I’ve thought about something like a WiiM Mini or WiiM Pro as a small streaming solution. But not yet. I’ve already spent enough years buying gear before knowing whether I really needed it. This time I want to try things first with what I already have. If the listening corner becomes part of my routine, then I can improve it later.

One Small Concern…

There is one thing I’m slightly worried about. My wife has very sensitive hearing, and the Stax SR-009s are open headphones that leak more sound than most people expect. So if we’re both in the bedroom, she’ll probably hear what I’m listening to. Maybe that’ll be a problem, maybe not. We’ll see.

What About My Vinyl?

All of this has made me think about my vinyl collection too. I have several shelves of records, but the turntable is part of the main system in the living room. So every time I want to play a record, I need access to that room. That’s another limitation I don’t really want to live with.

I’ve been thinking for a while about digitizing at least some of my records. Not all of them, there just isn’t enough time but definitely the albums I play most, and the ones that aren’t available on streaming services. A good digital copy would let me enjoy those records anywhere in the house. There’s another benefit too: a good digital copy would also reduce repeated wear on both the records and the stylus, especially with albums that are difficult or expensive to replace.

What Happens Next?

The next step is pretty simple. I’ll set up the bedroom listening corner with as much of my current gear as I can and see whether I actually use it. If it works, great. If not, at least I’ll learn something without spending money on another upgrade.

At the same time, I want to start digitizing some records from my vinyl collection and figure out a workflow that fits my music server setup.

I will report back once I know whether the bedroom setup actually becomes part of my daily life and once I have digitized the first few records. The mistakes and dead ends will be part of the story as well.