I find that my concentration abilities are boosted immeasurably by the right kind of music. I do a lot of writing, and with some Ishq or Ulrich Schnauss or Deuter or William Orbit in the background, I can churn out thousands of words without breaking a sweat. I don't listen to any of it very closely, it just serves as sonic wallpaper and allows my brain to go into super focus mode.

I also used to listen to a wide variety of music very seriously, but recently I've found that I have less and less patience for typical brickwalled crap. I still listen to it in the car or while working out or similar situations where fidelity is not top priority but all of my serious listening now is either on my turntable or my VortexBox server playing a needle drop.

I hate most bars as well, because most of them are blasting shitty music through god awful $20 PA speakers at about 120dB. Shouting directly into the ear of the person next to me so they can actually hear anything I'm saying is not my idea of a "good time." British or Irish style pubs where the music is maybe 65dB are WAY better.

I listen to music at random situations.
Sometimes just to kill time, sometimes as background music when driving and surfing net, and sometimes sitting down quietly doing nothing just to listen critically.

And interestingly, I notice that for the different situation I listen to music, there are difference in terms of perceived SQ.

(Poll: Answer#3)

I'm pretty much music or media/YouTube 'on' almost every waking moment.  It's to the point where if I do turn the stuff off either by accident or happenstance, it's borderline euphoric.  I'm not sure if this is cool (as in 'fun') or something to be concerned about.  Exceptions are if I'm going for a short walk or when I am traveling.

If I listen to music while working or writing, I listen to stuff that has no words and preferably something that I am unfamiliar with.  Unfamiliar classical works great for this.  I don't like stray or random little noises; so I use this background music as sort of white noise to mask anything like that.  When riding my road bike I listen to podcasts because if I listen to music I have a tendency to match my pedaling cadence to the beat which is not really good from a cycling tweak's perspective.  This changes when I'm on my mountain bike though.  In fact some of my favorite memories of rides are bombing down single track with a Ferry Corsten playing in one ear- it's almost like having a soundtrack.

Finally, I have this weird thing where if I try to only listen in a relaxed state, I will fall asleep almost guaranteed.  But if I decide to listen to some stuff while I am actually going to sleep (~2am…), more often than not I will stay up for at least another hour.  But I think that has more to do with my fragmented and poor sleep schedule.