[TheMuffinMan_01]

Or do you have to deal with outside noises? If so, do you feel that they decrease your enjoyment of your music? i have to deal with air conditioning coming on every other 15 minutes... do you have a place to listen in silence?

 

[john_jcb]

I have a room to myself where I do most of my headphone listening. If I am doing nothing but listening I will turn off the PC, shut the door and loose myself in the music. This is also how I will review new equipment. Most of my listening, however, is done while I am at the PC either working or surfing. Sometimes at night I will use headphones downstairs instead of speakers. It is also very quiet there if no one is around. Only downside is that if it is too late I will fall asleep.

 

[mulveling]

I live in an apartment (by myself) and have all my stuff in the living room, so of course it's not completely quiet 24/7. For starters, I do the bulk of my critical cd listening and dvd viewing to the hours of 12am-4am. All my neighbors are nice and quiet by then, but of course my daily schedule gets a little messed up <sweats>. I like listening in the dark anyways; no brain cells wasted on visual perception! Next biggest annoyance as you mentioned is heating/air, I generally turn it off during critical listening peridos. My apartment is really well insulated in the side of a hill, so no problems there. Next is the damn refrigerator that goes on and off, I'll turn that down to the lowest settings (1 out of 10 coldness) if I have to, though I don't bother for dvds. Finally, we have my computer that sits next to my headphone rig, but I built it myself with quiet parts and it hasn't annoyed me enough to shut it off yet. Plus I need it for dvds since it acts as an external video processor.

When I take the above measures, I'm pretty satisfied with my listening environment. And of course for casual listening I don't bother.

 

[TheMuffinMan_01]

nm

 

[Edwood]

Too many computers around me. But I have them built to be very quiet. Still an ongoing work in progress to quiet them even further.

-Ed

 

[itza2mer]

I live in a noisy neighborhood, near a busy road. Between my computer and my window unit air conditioner, I have enough white noise to cancel out the permanent low level damage ringing in my ears. I prefer closed headphones, which do the trick in masking out the majority of the outside noise.

So, no, I do not listen in dead silence.

 

[Oddball]

Most of the time, it's relatively quiet except for my semi-noisy computer. However right now, my neighbor from across the street is mowing his lawn.... But when I'm at school, I always use earcanalphones to block out all the talking and those annoying things they call "teachers."

 

[terrymx]

when to listen to open headphone in noisy enviroment, its more like torturing. you have to crank it up which is bad for the ears. also the noises will kill the bass, especially with grados. i listen to my headphones in a quiet enviroment with light off.

 

[NightRaven]

Dead silence is more or less impossible to find, but I do try to get things as quiet as I can.

 

[MagusG]

I'm still trying to get my computer as quite as possible, I still have a ways to go, but I'll get there. In theory, I want complete silence when listening to open headphones like my Grado SR-200.
-Mag

 

[Jasper994]

I can manage to turn off my computer but there's only a couple weeks out of the year where I can get away with turning off my window fan. Unfortunately for me, my room is placed in such a way that even with my windows wide open the air doesn't circulate. GRRRRR!

 

[Music Fanatic]

Whenever possible, whether listening to music or not, I strive for a quiet environment. I can't stand machine noise. I'm less bothered by quiet talking.

 

[the terabyte]

my listening room is now near silent (i even removed a quietly ticking clock's battery) and yet it still isn't enough. the single thing emitting noise is the hard drive in a fanless computer i use for a router. normally, this computer is to my left, and i began to notice an imbalance while listening to the k1000s. turns out, it was due to the faint whirr of the machines hard drive raising the noise floor in my left ear. swiveling my chair so the computer was at my back solved the problem.

 

[Sugo]

After enduring a noisy desktop tower for years, I went for a fanless laptop and it's well worth it.

My apartment (no bedroom) is very quiet except the annoying fridge. When the fridge not running, listening to music after 10pm is very, very enjoyable

 

[wallijonn]

K1000 should be listened to with the closet door closed.