That makes sense. Yes, I watched your videos. In my experience, vinyl people generally listen to entire sides or albums. Put an iPad in front of them and they jump from one 30 second snippet to another.
so are you saying you do not bounce around with the cartridge listening to short segments of records? That would make me much more comfortable as a host.
Of course I do short segments. I do short segments, to see if anything is even worth listening. If it is awful, I try to find a way to chat to stay for a while without being impolite. Some things are black and white. Then, when it starts sounding good, or with the combo (s) I like, I start listening more. Toughest is when I have zero interest after 15 minutes but need to listen to not be rude.
Also, my visit starts with me excited all over the place when someone has multiple things to investigate, and then I slowly settle down. If there is just the system to listen to, and not multiple things, it is longer listening if I like the system.
Why do you think I spent 4 days at Tang, listening 6 hours a day, taking notes, with many recordss? When I first went to Anamighty it was two days, with a break between the two days to reset. Same when I did multiple phono compares. At Mike's it was 3 long days, then a break, so that he could adjust carts, then another day. I played classical, jazz, rock, he played his.
Then, it starts getting longer and longer. Therefore some tracks are long, some not. Systems I like, I repeat visit. Components I want to check out, I follow for a while. Vyger for example across 10+ systems over years. I never wrote majorly about it till I extracted many of the things I heard at general's back again at Audioquattr's after 3 years. I almost never comment on only a once heard product and definitely never from shows. Even components I don't like I get to hear multiple times. So it amuses me when Al corroborates from someone whom I did not please that I heard 30 second smippets and jumped to a conclusion. When I heard Tom's Tannoy, I listened to many Tannoys. All his SPus, Madakes, I already knew. Tom knows this. So he is being completely intellectually dishonest to point out I used only his system 30 sec snippets for Madake decision. There was nothing there that was new in his carts, or sounding different to other experiences. The SPU was better than the Muddyke every track. You need to be deaf to need a longer passage to hear this, not to mention 1 or 2 sides is not enough data point. It needs to be across more types of records.
I recently had a visit where I started, warmed up, and was getting ready for another 4 hours when the rest of the guys had to leave. I had no idea we were cutting it short. Totally screwed up planning. rarely happens though.
Al will win the armchair commentator prize.