Speaker finish?


Here's a spouse epihany: In my living room, for the past 6 years, reside a pair (for the visual; interchange the speaker and color of your choice) of Zu Audio Definitions. The sell job on my wife to purchase these babies was as tough as it gets, but I have sold her the Brooklyn Bridge many times before. To her, as well as others. Anyway now it was time for a change of speakers, but lo and be hold they are the latest and greatest Definitions, so the footprint is the same, but just an inch or so higher. Another tough sell, being that they not only will cost some serious $$, they are still "ridiculous towers" in our living space. Well, I close the deal and order the speakers and (another) lo and behold, last night as we're going to bed, by wife says to me (I'll paraphrase, but this is as close to a direct quote as I can remember) "I'm actually excited about your new towers. The color is going to look great in our living room. Very beachy, and will look fabulous with our living theme. No I don't give a f__* what they sound like or why they do what they do to your music, so don't get too excited. They are going to be nice looking towers" What's an audiophool to say? I love her madly and am waiting on my music "towers." BTW, she does not accept this rap: "let me show you what speaker towers can look like." Proud of myself for taking the high [tacit]road, since it would only generate "there are sicker puppies out there, and that does not make it right." Any identification with this?...lol...
BTW the speaker color she chose was not a (NO charge) custom color, even though she would, at this stage of my audiophool career, pay anything for a "tower" that would compliment a living thematic. Go figure.
128x128warrenh
My wife has never seen any speakers I have bought before they 'appear' in the house. That said, I do understand her tastes and our living arrangments, so I know I can't buy electrostats/planars, or other 'big' speakers, because I have no room for them. I know she prefers a darker wood, usually rosewood. My speakers are usually around 4 foot high, less than a foot wide. She would prefer smaller, (Bose cubes are invisible you know...lol), but I still manage to keep full range speakers.

Her other nit is seeing exposed tubes, she does not like this at all. So she was quite unhappy when she came home and saw my new Cary SLP-98P F1 preamp last week. She gets mad, she gets glad again. I don't complain about her hobbies.

In fact, the way I see it now, she can't complain at all. I was waiting for years for my children to grow up and leave the nest. I figured I'd take an old bedrooms and turn it into a man cave. LOL! I still have one at home, but it turns out that she snagged both bedrooms of the boys that moved out. One is now her changing room and the other is her scrap-booking room. So my system is still in the main living room. I don't complain, because it's a good room acoustically, but from where I sit, she can't complain about how anything looks either. Because it only sits in the living room because she's hogged all the other rooms. :)
That's a good one. My wife loves the look of the tubes, however, she has taken a bedroom and we turn it into a very major walk in closet. I suppose there is a balance. My rig costs 5x more than her closet which was ridiculous. Looking back, not as crazy to my wife is $800 power cords. I love this stuff. A change from capacitors, tubes, coils, the whole nine. My first wife allowed, believe it or not, the Magnaplanr Tympani 1Ds in our crib. 4'x6'x 1" and 3 feet from the wall. This didn't help things, but a perk of a marraige going south. It's Lyric Sound's (nyc)fault...lol
I found it was cheaper to build a new house over top of my dedicated audio room than to dig out from a divorce...every other room is her's. Tom
Before I got my Cain & Cain Abbys, my wife and I listened to them at my
dealer's home (a single wide mobile home). She says 'they're way too big'.
In that room, of course they were. They showed up as a demo anyway.
Now, my room is 17 deep X 35 wide and cathedral ceilings. They're a
beautiful maple and it wasn't long before she stated an attraction for them.
"I listened to them at my dealer's home (a single wide mobile home).”

Gadzooks!
Gadzooks is right! Can you imagine how they might have sounded set up in the back of a white van? Actually, they didn't sound bad in his home, just not as terrific as they do in my home.
You are on the road to audio and martial disaster. You have just been suckered and you don't know it. It is obvious, when she finds someone else with a better 'finish', content and function doesn't matter, she will dump you. Better check with Dr. Phil for further advice.
Well, I 've been audioing for over 40 yrs and wifey complained a bit when I swapped my AR-4's for Dahlquist DQ-10's( which look a lot like ESL quads_} . I sucked it up and went into FULL

attack mode about I go to work, I lve her too etc etc, this IS hows it going to be, knowing it was make or break, now or never.
She gave me a liitle look when I first got Maggies but has never made a peep. Better to die on your feet that live on your knees IMHO.
Ah DQ 10s with a sub. Midrange to die for. I moved from my huge Maggies to these. No waf problem there,being the square footage, until I had microfaret (sp?)capacitors installed in place of the stock. Still, all in all, a good move.
It's very unpredictable. I had B&W 805s that are modest stand mounted speakers, and I upgraded to Von Schweikert VR-33's that look like - well, have you seen 2001 A Space Odyssey - that monolith? - that's what they look like. And guess what? My girlfriend prefers the look of the VR33. I let her choose the color.

So if you have one speaker that looks like a diamond ring and another that looks like Darth Vader - which one does she prefer the look of? Don't assume anything - ask her.