Organising the soundscape: Participants' orientation to impending sound when turning on auditory objects in interaction

This chapter examines two auditory objects, i.e. devices that produce sounds when in use: audio entertainment systems and vacuum cleaners. Despite their apparent differences, both objects raise similar relevancies for how and when they are employed. The chapter demonstrates that participants treat the turning on of an auditory object as negotiable and requiring disengagement from other involvements, such as talk. Consequently, turning on an auditory object occurs typically at points where the participants have brought a previous interactional activity to a close collaboratively and where the possibility of turning on the auditory object has been explicated either verbally or physically.