Is the kitchen the new living room?

[oliverh Linn Staff]

There's a new blog from Gilad up - one for all you DS owners perhaps, has DS changed the way you listen to music?

http://blogs.linn.co.uk/giladt/2012/07/i...g-room.php

Would be interesting to hear from anyone with a multiroom setup too - any interesting Songcast uses yet?

Cheers,

Oliver

[grimreaper46]

Music is TOO important to have to compete with the food mixer or Microwave pinger.

I need to be able to sit down and immerse my self in the musical experience.

You may as well spend your time going up and down in a lift listening to musac.

[Stu]

My hi-fi is not in the living room, but I do have knekt in the kitchen and enjoy the experience. No substitute for serious listening though.

[kook]

Over the last four years, I worked as Head Chef at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in Edinburgh. I installed a Linn Classik, LK140 and Komponent 104's. The system got used over 70 hours a week and was a great benefit to the 10 employees who worked in the space. Chefs were extremely impressed and it contributed to our excellent staff retention - notoriously bad in the hospitality industry.

Later we added a USB dac and streamed music, podcasts, digital radio etc. controlled by an apple remote app with wifi from a computer in the office. A great system which was enjoyed by more people, and for more time compared to my Linn system at home. A Kiko would have been perfect.

If you spend a lot of time in a kitchen / workspace - or, crucially, have a large kitchen with a living / dining area attached, the chances are it could easily become the most used system in the house with the greatest 'ear hours'.

I find serious listening is a different activity altogether and tends to be much more solitary.

[linnrd]

Interesting blog post, Gilad. However, do the kids really want to hear the audio from the news as you watch it? Do you and your spouse really want to hear what the kids are viewing on their iPads? You have mentioned that music has become a communal activity, but what you are referring to isn't music, so much as it is the audio accompanying the video. Unless everyone's viewing pleasures are common, these activities will, by default, not be communal. I am not undermine the concept of having quality audio reproduction; in fact, I laud it. I just do not think that it is something that will suddenly convert fragmented viewing to communal viewing overnight. It is also interesting that the viewing you refer to (YouTube and Netflix) is the epitome of poor video quality; i.e. the video equivalent of low bit-rate MP3. If someone can somehow rationalize why it is that they watch Netflix (instead of something on Blu-ray or DVD or...even TV) then the glass house one resides in puts a bit of a damper on railing against lossy audio codecs at low bit-rates.

In many ways, I almost think that the DS ecosystem works well for a solitary listener in that when one is in the basement or workshop, one does not have to have the speakers cranked up to 85dB upstairs but can instead "spread the joy" via a Kiko or second DS. ukandrewf's porch system being a good example of this at use. Since this wheel had been invented a long time ago with multi-room multi-channel amps and additional speakers, I can't see what a DS would bring to this party other than...wait...allowing different music streaming through each DS, which once again isn't communal listening but...fragmented listening.

Very enthusiastic blog post, as all of yours are. I would also like to thank you for sharing these with us and, more importantly, baring yourself open to comments of those that may or may not be in agreement. That, above all, is a rather neat example of your "open" ethos that you brought to the DS ecosystem. Can't imagine an example of stronger conviction than that within the linn.co.uk domain. Thanks for that.

[rowlandhills]

I'm definitely a fan of multiroom, and have on quite a few occasions setup a playlist while chatting to friends and family in the sitting room (Klimax Renew DS), then moved to the dining room and kept listening by songcasting to the Sneaky in there (with the main system muted), before moving back into the sitting room after dinner.

I've just bought a Sneaky for the bedroom too, so I could finish off there now.

I also find myself finding long-forgotten songs on YouTube and songcasting those to one of the DSs, which works nicely.

[SaltyDog]

Our kitchen is open and connected to the family/listening room. It just so happens that that the three best places to listen are in "the" chair , the kitchen table and the end of the counter where I cut the veggies. They are approximately the same distance apart in line with the line between the speakers. This area has no flat smooth parallel walls and the ceiling also is not consistent (at a loss of words for a description). The floors are carpeted in front by the speakers and oak in the kitchen and eating area.

I have had dedicated listening rooms in the past and it led to being isolated from the rest of the family.

As for multi-room - I use the volume buttons for that.

[Dannythered]

(2012-07-14 17:16)SaltyDog Wrote:  As for multi-room - I use the volume buttons for that.

+1, when my 802s arrived I was asked were I sat to listen and I replied
" lounge, kitchen, courtyard all depends on how loud I have the music"

[Visoflex]

If you live in a sizeable house, then probably. In my part of suburbia if you want to hear music in a different room, then we open a door, and turn up the volume.

Having differing music streams in different rooms would just end up as a cacophony in a small house .

[linnrd]

(2012-07-14 17:34)Dannythered Wrote:  

(2012-07-14 17:16)SaltyDog Wrote:  As for multi-room - I use the volume buttons for that.

+1, when my 802s arrived I was asked were I sat to listen and I replied
" lounge, kitchen, courtyard all depends on how loud I have the music"

+1.