I will turn 59 later this year, with thoughts and discussions of retirement and seasonal relocation becoming more prevalent of late. I have, like some other forum members that are “coming of age” begun planning for a downsizing or in my opinion a rightsizing
While not in a big hurry, I do plan to start a fairly significant transformation of my system(s) while also letting go of a bunch of “stuff” not in use, cables, tubes, spare/back-up components…
Plan is to transition from my current system consisting of mono-blocks, preamp, full analog and digital chains as well as a plethora of cables and accessories to a Class A integrated, end game turntable and phono-stage. I recently added a new DAC and server, which will remain for the time being
I am looking forward to this journey, in addition to being a music lover and a gear head, I enjoy the “hunt” for new gear, the research, demos, and the solicitation of ideas and experience from this forum
All that said, I’ll post significant changes, if there is interest, as well as posting some items in the marketplace as I move on from them, letting go will be the most difficult part of this project
Five years after my retirement, my downsize plan was a total failure. I had to buy two new racks to contain the increased number of components, not to mention much more costly cables.
There is hope; I plan to downsize my 300 lbs. speakers (each) to 200 lbs. speakers (each) one day.
Tomorrow will be day 3 of semi-retirement. Among other reasons I’ve been going through a similar process on a couple fronts including audio gear. Letting go of the stuff but more importantly letting go of the idea that life will be something less without has been for me the hardest part. But damn, it sure is liberating to let go!
Smooth sailing!
Good luck, John. I started the same kind of thinking two years before my retirement. You didn’t mention it, so I’ll say among the biggest factors in your transition (from the sound of it to a new home or apartment?) will be the size of your listening room. If you know where you’ll be that’s great - you’ll already know the size of your space. If not, start looking on Zillow or some such site to examine the kinds of places that will fit in your future plan. Get an idea of what kind of space considerations you’ll have to deal with. If you’re keeping your speakers, this will help you assure yourself that they’ll fit the room. If you plan to get new speakers, it’ll help in figuring how large a pair of speakers makes sense.
In my case I knew my (what were) current speakers would not work in a dedicated room the size of which I’d likely have in my post retirement life. So I kept that in mind when I started evaluating speaker choices. It helped a lot.
Plan to work for a few more years so, the current house/space won’t change. We are planning to build a small house in the Melbourne Fl area and start with winters down there after retirement
Want to able to easily pack up the system and relocate when full time move happens
Downsizing is just the opposite of what I have been thinking. My thought process the last few years has been to build my (realistic) dream system, and if I do retire, my audio & video systems will be set.
I have a friend that lives over in Melbourne. I’m out there occasionally to visit him. I’d be happy to stop by for a visit once you’re down here, if you’d like to see a fellow forum member!
Hey, Paul, if I could have found in my desired area a single story house that met all my other criteria, with a large unencumbered room that could be single purposed as a dedicated listening room, believe me I’d have gone big. But one of my absolutes was never again to have a “listening / fill in the blank” room. I had enough of that in too many “this and that” rooms living in different homes over 40+ years. IME the compromises demanded to get a large space at the expense of that are too great in proportion to what may be given up in a smaller, well designed dedicated space. My current system seems to prove all of this out. I lack for nothing that I consider necessary in a musical space, where I can go with no distractions.
Am fortunate to have everything on one level. Ktichen, family room, dining room, bedrooms, bathrooms & laundry rooms are all on the same level. Plus a heated garage. And best of all, a good sounding room for the music system.
Exactly. Most of us have been tweaking and improving our systems as much as possible, and to suddenly abandon everything we have worked for seems against our nature, especially since we can hear the lesser quality sound. But I do understand wanting to keep things simple, and in general, to have less material items to deal with, and especially heavy items.
For me, yes. While I still have excellent mobility, I’m hoping I won’t ever have to buy another house again. So for me that meant planning for any future issues that might make having an upper story problematic.
For some it’s not a question of downsizing, but “right sizing”. Imagine if you owned a pair of Sound Lab 745s. Would it service them well if you bought a retirement home in a desired 55+ community where, other than a great room or bedroom, the largest rooms were on the order of 10x12? That’s not what I did, but as an example would such a person rather spend all their remaining years frustratingly trying to get such behemoth speakers to sound ideal in such a small space - and ultimately live with limitations, or mightn’t be better to create a new system ideally suited to the chosen environment? No need to replace everything, but IMO the speaker/room relationship is perhaps the most important. Right sizing that relationship sets the groundwork for either listening to music or listening to your system as you try and get it to sound like music. I’ve been in too too many homes where the speaker / room combinations are just, again IMO, sub-optimal. Not speaking for anyone else but me.
In fact, now with my new rack, I’m faced with the absurd situation where I have ample room for monoblocks, but no monoblocks.
And one stereo amp is throwing off my sense of symmetry… I feel lopsided. So the hunt continues.
For me (us) we have a large home but don’t want to downsize just yet. We want to “down-tax” since property taxes here are massive. We will know better once the kids have their own families and have settled. If not close to us, we might move closer to them.
Presently in downsizing mode, so to speak. This one’s a bit complicated as we are focused on downsizing two properties into one. Presently focused on condos as I have lost interest in day to day maintenance headaches. I still have plenty of those as we continue to keep our modest lake front property.
Personally I’d prefer a single story floor plan due to my knee issues. A single story modern duplex with a basement would be ideal. My wife being an avid rower, seeks property near a river with an active rowing club, preferably in the Midwest.
A high rise could be an option, but the amount of trimming down for us will be ginormous as storage tends to be rather miniscule.
Regarding a listening system downsizing presents an opportunity to apply what I have learned on my audiophile journey, and to seek out the latest in a scaled down package. As I listen to my primary system I wonder if I really should scale things down, as it’s dialed in and “just right”.
So for me that meant planning for any future issues that might make having an upper story problematic.