It has to be the right time, place and setting

Marc Hirsh/NPR writes about 'the listening experience" -- his ritual when putting on a new release.

Here's a snippet that rings so true:

"...What has kept me from just putting the damn thing in my CD player and pressing "play" is a bit of what I fully accept is compulsive irrationality: I want to hear it so much that I want to make sure that conditions are exactly right the very first time I listen to it, and conditions have not been exactly right. And that is, in a word, stupid..."