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Which gear does your teenage offspring use for listening to his/her music?


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A bunch of you have posted some vintage equipment that used to be your first hifi gear, sometimes bought after a long period of work and savings, sometimes inherited from our parents.

 

Most of us with a sweet warm feeling in their heart due to youthful memories associated ...

 

I was wondering, what your sons and daughters in teen age are listening to nowadays?

 

Do they follow the path of their (mostly) fathers and look for the best available gear?

Are they satisfied with used hifi gear from the closet or do they take the short path of Smartphone/Tablet with ear buds, even not using an external DAC for sound enhancement?

 

My youngest son, quite soon 13 years old, does the latter for convenience, (Huawei P8 lite with stock ear buds), but he uses most of the times the old gear of his mum, HK 3250 Receiver with Infinity Ref 61 MK II speakers, fed by my old Hifidelio (aka Olive Symphony in the US), customized running from SD- CARD only, and the old Musical Fidelity V90 II Dac, when withdrawing from family life. (permanently at the moment ;-)

No linear power supply and fancy cables, though. And some Superlux closed earphones.

 

As the wall behind the speakers is made of only 2 cm fiberboard and covers the opening of the stairways , I have used 4 panels (l 60cm x h 120 cm x d 15 cm ) filled with cellulose flex dampening to minimize the expected bass vibrations. The overall room sound is quite dry now, but he could have some more intense experience with his speakers without his mum interfering too quickly.

 

I am quite content he is appreciating my efforts and forgot quickly about I-Phones and Pads when having this gear and his Android phone. Have you got similar experiences with your kids ?

Cheers, Tom

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"Do they follow the path of their (mostly) fathers and look for the best available gear?

Are they satisfied with used hifi gear from the closet or do they take the short path of Smartphone/Tablet with ear buds, even not using an external DAC for sound enhancement?"

 

I think you have it right with the above quote. As for plugging into a dac, 99% don't even know what it is and why they should use one.

 

I see you live in France. My comment is for the US market. It wouldn't surprise me if European kids are more likely to use a dac.

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They use iPods or laptops. I set them up with Zeppelin minis for the iPods but they seem to think the better sound isn't worth the hassle, and ear-buds give them a sense of privacy I guess, too. My youngest one is the only one that even suggests he cares about sound quality, but I think he says it because he thinks that is what I want to hear (he is quite manipulative).

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My 17 year old son is at boarding school and he is an accomplished singer and guitarist. He played at my 60th much to my delight. For the past 3 he has been content with playing Spotify through his "in ear" headphones, but with only one ear at time!

 

He has always thought I was a bit eccentric with my passion for sound but as he has become more serious about his music he has also begun taking an interest in audio. His reward has been to inherit my original dragonfly and a pair of Akimate micro powered speakers for his desktop at school (he finally has his own room). He tells me they sound "incredible".

 

Micro B

 

Lately I have found myself with some spare time and I have begun haunting pawn shops. The other day I found a pair of Tannoy Reveal speakers, B&W Sub and a Marantz ZS5300 multi zone amp, all about 10 years old and would have cost at least US$1,200 new, I paid US$200 for the lot. The Marantz allows 3 different inputs playing into 3 separate zones each with their own volume control. I set the system up in my office using an Explorer 2 DAC connected to my MAC Air playing Tidal via Roon software.

 

My son came home for an Exeat last weekend and walked into my office and just stood there with a surprised look on his face and said "I thought you bought this stuff at pawn shop, how come it sounds so good?". I explained to him that through experience I new all the brands by reputation and that they were all quality products, however, the pawn shop owner did not appreciate their value, or at least his other customers didn't. All I had to do was add a decent front end and I had a very inexpensive but good quality system. I explained about the importance of lossless (Tidal) vs lossy (Spotify), bit perfect playback (Roon) and the role the DAC plays. Also the fact that my office was a small room with soft furnishings (stopping reflections) helped the sound.

 

The real lesson for him though was that knowledge is power, whether buying audio, shares or real estate .... you have to know your market.

 

Anyway, I also purchased a pair of outside speakers ($70 the pair) and will give him the whole system when he comes home for the holidays so he can play music in his room or outside using either his iPhone into an Apple Express, or directly out of his laptop via the dragonfly.

 

Very inexpensive, flexible and easy to use system - the governing factor IME for kids.

LOUNGE: Mac Mini - Audirvana - Devialet 200 - ATOHM GT1 Speakers

OFFICE : Mac Mini - Audirvana - Benchmark DAC1HDR - ADAM A7 Active Monitors

TRAVEL : MacBook Air - Dragonfly V1.2 DAC - Sennheiser HD 650

BEACH : iPhone 6 - HRT iStreamer DAC - Akimate Micro + powered speakers

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Our 18 yo daughter, just about to start sophomore year in college, uses iPhone and earbuds mainly with Spotify (though I've been weaning her onto Tidal). She got set of Beats wireless recently free with new Macbook purchase, but still mainly likes the earbuds for their size and convenience.

 

Ah, if I am allowed to boast a bit, she is a theater and performing arts major at East Coast liberal arts school.

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star

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Which one, Thomas? (There is more than one.) You have to brag a little bit less nebulously.

 

I just remembered we got our oldest one some decent over-ear Senheisers, and he really appreciates it. (He's at an East Coast liberal arts college in Oregon.)

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Which one, Thomas? (There is more than one.) You have to brag a little bit less nebulously.

 

I just remembered we got our oldest one some decent over-ear Senheisers, and he really appreciates it. (He's at an East Coast liberal arts college in Oregon.)

 

Yes, there are a few....At least two good ones in Oregon as well.

 

She is at Sarah Lawrence. Great choice for her as it has no real majors (design your own), great performing arts, and small interactive classes... and a 30 min train ride to Grand Central Station. That latter fact is good for her theater/social/cultural life, and a place I like to visit her at as well. Even more leftist than Berkeley High.

 

Her music tastes are evolving nicely too. I am thrilled she is out of the One Direction phase !

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star

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Thank you very much for your post.

 

"I think you have it right with the above quote. As for plugging into a dac, 99% don't even know what it is and why they should use one.

 

I see you live in France. My comment is for the US market. It wouldn't surprise me if European kids are more likely to use a dac.

 

No, not at thirteen, usually. ;-)

 

I just got myself a Dragonfly Red for DJing with my Laptop at a friend's 50s Anniversary, but the idea to give my son a listening experience with it was one of the triggers to start this thread. I fear I could be disappointed, which may be better the deprived of the Dragonfly.

 

On the other hand, he concluded with me yesterday, that the LG Quadbeat 3 ear buds sound much better than his stock ear buds. They had been the first inears I liked so far.

 

The ability to catch a difference in sound quality apparently exists ;-)

 

Cheers, Tom

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My 13-year-old daughter uses an iPhone 5 and Beats Tour 2.5 earbuds. She also has a Bluetooth portable speaker, but she rarely uses it.

 

She doesn't own any music. She either streams/downloads from our shared Apple Music account or listens to music on YouTube. I have even offered to buy her CDs, but she would rather have the money to buy clothes.

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Thank you for your response, Ajax.

 

I really like that anecdote, and your son will like it too, surely! But it reflects as well the dilemma, if one really enjoys looking for and buying some gear, there are always lot's of options.

 

First hand, I was looking on some bibliotheque speaker for my son's room. I had peeked on some nice focals for 100 USD only, and I found them 20 km away from us, but my finance director insisted on using the gear waiting in the cellar. (I may post a pic of the gear in another post). This had been a different beast, then.

 

My 17 year old son is at boarding school and he is an accomplished singer and guitarist. He played at my 60th much to my delight.

 

Unfortunately my son has just given up Piano playing for PS4 gaming, after playing for about 5 years. He had just a mastered the Star Wars Theme and Metallica's "Nothing else matters" this spring. But he did not love playing anymore. Maybe towards my 60th birtday the cards will change

 

Very inexpensive, flexible and easy to use system - the governing factor IME for kids.

 

Truth!!!

 

Cheers, Tom

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Thank you very much for your response.

 

My 13-year-old daughter uses an iPhone 5 and Beats Tour 2.5 earbuds. She also has a Bluetooth portable speaker, but she rarely uses it.

 

She doesn't own any music. She either streams/downloads from our shared Apple Music account or listens to music on YouTube. I have even offered to buy her CDs, but she would rather have the money to buy clothes.

 

Looks like the apple/beats mix is a winner.

 

I do not support apple products for several reason, mainly I found them always lacking value for money, even I liked their design a lot. But unfortunately for teenagers the brand becomes more and more important, so we had that discussion and I have won the first battle on the subject with "quality" over "fancyness", but I assume that was not the last.

 

I do as well fear that during the teenage period, parents may find the necessarity to buy new mobile/earphone equipment much to often due to loss, theft or damage. I prefer to pay less than 200 USD for a set rather than 400+ USD in that case. We had twice a broken screen on his first Motorola mobile. I know the price for an Iphone screen change here, too.

 

For the streaming:

I had asked him once, hearing that his friends have spotify or weezer (french), thinking he might like to have options and explore some music just by curiosity (as I did in his age) ...

But he is happy with his two records he does listen to for the last year, One Republic and Bastille.

I am a bit wary about the lack of curiosity, but at least he got some taste in music I may accept.

 

Cheers, Tom

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