“Recently I was intrigued by the surprising (to me) revelation that professional musicians rarely bother listening to high end Hi-Fi music at home. They seem perfectly content to listen to music from whatever device happens to be around, be that a small transistor radio or ear buds from a phone. It doesn’t matter much, if at all.
Back in the day when there were only two channels of TV and radio for entertainment, it was different. The stereogram and later, Hi-Fi separates, were the ‘main thing’ in a home. Any self-respecting living room or student flat was incomplete unless it had two very substantial speakers and a rack of high tech audio gear prominently on show. Of course, this sort of thing is still around, but tends to be seen only in rooms of the dedicated (and wealthy) audio enthusiast. …”