How do you find time to enjoy your $$$ speakers and system?

Maybe different for me. It's funny, now that I had a home built with a dedicated 2 channel room, it doesn't get much love. And here's the problem.

I'm retired but my wife works a lot of hours, so there's little time for her to sit and enjoy the fruits of our audio room.

In the past, with all the homes we've occupied, the stereo was the main focus of entertainment. We would rent or buy homes predicated on where would the stereo go. Our entertainment with friends (not family) would center on the audio experience. BBQ's and wine, having friends bring their cable or amp to test, attending shows and constant tweaking, it had been the focus of my life for 57 years. But now I'm in the middle of Utah, custom room, amazing equipment and a wife who shares in the audio experience. And I'm down to 10 hours a week. Well, we do have a 12 year old, so there's that.

So my wife doesn't love my speakers and I didn't know that until a few weeks ago! When I moved our much cheaper $2K speakers into the main room she got interested again. Time for new speakers.

And there are no audiophiles that I can find in this part of the country. So it largely became a solo experience. I've though of moving the system to the living room where the kitchen is as well and damn the custom room and all those circuits. At the end of the day, I just want to listen to music. 

Maybe new speakers that my wife will love will double the listening time. She's also deleting one of her jobs, that'll help. 

Anyone out there that lives in southern/middle Utah, come over for a listen!

It definitely helps to be retired which I am. I dedicate a few hours daily usually late afternoon or evening for critical listening and new music research. These are luxuries I could not afford while working and raising a family but I’m taking full advantage of it now.

I have my mian system in my main living area, because my goal was to have a system I can enjoy as much as possible in as many use cases as possible. And enjoy it when company is around. That has tradeoffs versus a dedicated room of course, mainly around acoustics and WAF.

However, I'd much rather trade those for getting to enjoy it more of the time. I probably listen on average at least 10-12 hours a week purely for music. Combined use with the AV setup, probably double that.

Since covid, I mostly work from home. I set up my home office desk directly behind my listening couch so the imaging is fairly good. I have music on whenever I'm not on the phone or in zoom meetings, so I average around 6 hours/day. 

Most of this listening is background music while I work, but it still sounds fabulous. When I need a break from the computer, I'll sit down for a serious listen to a song or two.

When I was going into the office every day, I had a nice headphone rig which I listened to, but I far prefer listening to good speakers.

the only time i listen to my reference system is when i have to audition a new piece of gear or i have to QC check a CDR i just made. the rest of the time, i listen to music on some "antique" MP3 players that have the best of my collection of roll-your-own's on them, via a decent set of relatively efficient/sensitive sennheiser cans.