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How have others kept their music habit alive while also having kids?

G

geetee1972

pfm Member
I'm at the point where I am looking to get rid of my main system and relegate myself to headphones only. I've got two kids and now no spare listening room. The wife is 'amusical' and while the living room isn't small, it's just not got the practicality to keep my system set up, not least because the speakers would never survive.

I know a great solution would be something wall mounted but even before we get into the terrible compromise that could represent, the wife looks at me with a 'if you think you're doing that you're seriously mistaken' face.

It's a frustating as all heck. I used to live without a TV and never without music on and now I'm lucky if I get two hours twice a year (bit like married life sex really!)

So how have the rest of you survived?
 
I kept my LP12/Ittok/Troika/NAC62/NAP250 and Linn Sara through two kids. Survived intact.

Music was sometimes a problem as at the end of a long drive home I lower the stylus into the groove sit back with an ice cold G&T about to touch my lips and as the first bar plays I get 'WHAT DO THINK YOU ARE DOING! YOU'LL WAKE THE BABY!'

However if the kit is in situ one can find some time to relax and take a listen. Now I'm catching up when the evenings are MY time and at 95+ dB........

Cheers,

DV
 
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I kept the music real 'n' rockin' with a baby cage.
 
Made a fatal mistake - I thought it would be good to include the kids in our music and allowed them at first to listen and a little later to operate the kit - all went really well until one day my youngest was was attempting to use it but had not realised the last use was on the phono input and as she could not hear anything she turned the amp up higher and higher to try and listen to her CD until eventually there was a horrific occilating as the pickup secured on its rest started to feedback. Rather than quickly turn the amp off she fled the room with her hands over her ears leaving the system howling its guts out. Result blown speakers. I was upstairs and at first thought it was a road drill outside!!!! Learned a lot about how to replace the B200s in my Saras though :(
 
I explained to my wife it would be a personality building experience for the tykes, & to my surprise she fell for it.
 
The kids never went close to the stereo, but they did lose a couple of fingers each. Seriously if you've got some good kit and you are worried just sort out some small throw away speakers and plough on. You should be able to have some you time even with kids.

There is the case of the bent cantilever. I never found out who did the damage.
 
There are two issues here: loss of time to listen to music, and the need not to wake the little blighters up. Headphones will do for the latter, but the former can't really be compensated for unless you do without sleep.

There's also the collateral damage aspect; I lost a cartridge to prying fingers, so moved the turntable to a wall shelf, only for my daughter to yank it off the shelf by pulling on the mains lead. So unless you have a lockable room for the hifi, box it up for a few years and/or make sure your contents insurance covers accidental damage.
 
If you teach the kids to be careful with things, not to touch certain things, you won't have a problem. My Hi-Fi has never been removed, hidden or protected. The kids have never done any harm to it. In fact the only damage I have ever had was a visiting teenager pushing in a tweeter on my Kans!

I despair when I see people talking about how their kids wreck stuff and there is nothing they can do about it. I've had friends who's kids broke every ornament they had. The kids aren't bad, it's the parents that are stupid! If you teach the kids how to behave properly, they will. Some people just have no idea how to do that.

But they usually bleat on about how they've tried everything but that's just the way the kids are. Garbage! You watch them with the kids and they are just utterly clueless. Nobody likes being told they don't know how to discipline their kids though so there is nothing you can do about it.

Unless of course the kids have some kind of mental health problem, which some do. I know a few folk who had kids that were a huge problem when they were younger, one spent half his childhood drugged up to keep him on the ground. But if you've got normal kids, teach them. They are smart, even as toddlers. If you can train a dog not to crap in your house you can certainly train a child not to smash up your Hi-Fi.
 
May be I was just lucky, or maybe the kids were just odd. My HiFi survived three of them, although the only turntable I had at the time was a Technics SL10 linear tracking thing, so not very vulnerable. I had built a bookcase unit that also housed the HiFi, supposedly up out of reach, but they could always have climbed up on the settee. It was just a case of "it's daddy's; don't touch!"
As for keeping them awake at night, it soon became a case of, if the music wasn't on, they couldn't sleep !
 
Wife and kids! Kiss your freedom and hobbies goodbye! Your life is over :) Only half joking or am I? :) Plough on.

Lucky my dad only had a dynatron radiogram because we wrecked it. By the time we were teens his equipment was being sneaked all over the place. He put a sharp flatbed cassette deck in the base. Great a new toy for us!

He was tired out from working to support us so I dont think he was too bothered :)
 
I let the vinyl go and let a basic CD based system suffice. CD and amp in a cupboard, just a pair of Epos 11's out. I'm with Pig - taught my kids not to touch. But my listening did rather take a back seat for a few years although I've now refreshed with new kit. Had a dabble with my old TT out recently but I'm happy with CD/macbook these days. So my answer is that you perhaps can compromise until you get a bit more time back.
 
eisenach said:
the only turntable I had at the time was a Technics SL10 linear tracking thing, so not very vulnerable.
Click to expand...

I had an LP12 on an Audiotech table right in the middle of the wall in the livingroom. You don't a get a lot more vulnerable than that! Except a deck with no lid.
 
The Mrs is the problem at our house. When the system is on and she enters the room the atmosphere becomes tense, so I usually turn it off and encourage her to leave the room.
 
Pete the Feet said:
The Mrs is the problem at our house. When the system is on and she enters the room the atmosphere becomes tense, so I usually turn it off and encourage her to leave the room.
Click to expand...

It does seem to be the case, in my experience, that women are generally nowhere near as keen on music as we are.... Even those I have known that have professed a keen interest in music have soon showed their true colours by making the TV the priority over the HI FI! :(
And on those occasions when they say they do want to listen to music it always has to be quiet enough to easily talk over it.... which they then proceed to do!
I'll never understand 'em...
 
the wife is often more of a danger to your music listening than kids. I may have been lucky on both fronts. Kids will, and do, sleep through music. Do they sleep in the car, ours did, with the radio/tape player on. They sleep in buggies with traffic going past, in fact one of mine slept through a Kart GP at Silverstone. We went with the cheap speakers wall mounted, compromised yes, but less of a compromise than none in the room. The grand kids are learning the same rules at the moment, not just about the hi-fi, but about things in general, as in dont touch means just that. If you are to remove things you don't want then to touch out of harms way, I suggest you start with the cooker and lawnmower.

The biggest 'compromise' the kids caused was the lack of cash to buy new music, still have parts of the gap in the collection to fill.
 
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