1. About 6-6.5 feet away.
2. That's hard, because my tastes are all over the place. Mostly it's rock and its subgenres (from 50s to current, incl. prog, art, folk, psych, hard, blues-rock, etc), classic 50s-60s jazz and blues, various singer-songwriters (think Nick Drake or Joni Mitchell), '80s-current new wave/alternative/indie rock/post-punk, some funk and reggae, instrumental classical (excl. opera), etc etc. I rarely if ever listen to opera, hip hop, modern mainstream pop, some extreme genres of metal (I do love some NWOBHM!), plus I'm not a huge electronic music head (I don't mind it but it's not a big chunk of my listening).