. My brother-in-law entered my home as jazz was playing on my system. After about three songs, the announcer came on and started to speak..and my brother-in-law looked at me with amazement.."that was the radio??!!
He could not believe he was listening to a radio station. It was my killer Sansui TU-X1 tuner doing its thing. Best compliment I could ever receive. My bro-in-law is not an audiophile. .
Best so far is... "Are those regular cd's or speacial order cd's"? Second best... "Now I see why people spend crazy money on stereo equipment. I didn't know that there was a three dimensional soundstage to stereo".
Many people make no comment which I interpret as them wondering how much money I wasted on this junk. One friend looked at the speakers and gasped and said "They are huge!". Then she proceeded to draw parallels with the connection between large cars and parts of the anatomy, and took great delight in estimating that I would probably rank last place in the city. Usual comment I get is how "clear" it sounds, and questions about the location of the rear speakers. The best comment came from a friend who brought his jazz CD over. We put it on and he went unusually quiet for a few minutes and then said "wow, this really brings the music to life". Another was hunting around for the right word to describe the sound and then said "magical". By contrast, my father's elderly friend took a glance at my high end set up which includes mono blocks, pre-amp, exotic cables etc...and said: "That sounds alright. Is it a Samsung?". I said "yes", and he seemed quite satisfied. On his way out he told me he still thinks that Sony sounds better.
great thread... for me, this is a 3 way tie.. even though I have never owned a truly elite system, there are still some great memories..
1) many years ago I was playing a classical piano recording using my B&W DM7's with some very nice cartridge and my friend Joe thought my brother was playing piano in the next room.
2) my 33 year old son now considers 70's vintage Genesis, Yes, ELP. etc.. his music.
3) My current girlfriend, who is Chinese (I live in Dongguan..she calls the stereo room my "song room") said to me something to the effect "nie booyanda" (translates like "you are different") while she was watching me using nylon wire-ties to fix a panel of acoustic foam while mounting it to a frame from one of those temporary clothing closets/storage racks to use as a rear diffusion panel behind the speakers..
Fun thread! My Prima Luna usually gets a lot of comments because of the way it looks and the Joseph Audio have been getting a lot of "wow, great sound coming from those bookshelf speakers!"
"That sounds alright. Is it a Samsung?". I said "yes", and he seemed quite satisfied. On his way out he told me he still thinks that Sony sounds better.
An anecdote: My friend is a lifelong audiophile who has committed a great deal of time, effort and money (close to six figures) in building his system. Ive never met anyone more proud of an effort. And so it was that he was beyond thrilled when he called to tell me that a professional reviewer was to be his guest that evening. I called him at work the next day to ask how it went. He was absolutely crushed. Apparently, after only about 5 minutes of listening, and without comment, the reviewer asked, very matter of factly, if they could just watch TV.
Many compliments on my system over the years, with a very common one being friends who want to "just listen for a few minutes," but wind up staying for hours and saying "can I hear just one more song ?" But probably the most meaningful compliment has always been from my Dad (who is now enjoying the world's greatest music from his own listening seat up in heaven) who would sit in front of my system and listen to the incredible live version of Brubeck's "Take Five" with his eyes closed, his toes tapping, and a big sloppy grin on his face.
few very nice compliments that really made me feel very proud.
One guy kept looking around the room and asked where all the speakers war. I told him that we were listening to the 2 Dali Helicons in front of us. He kept looking around and said it sounds like you have sound coming from speakers all over the place.
Another nice comment was made by a very nice couple who were members of of Chicago musical band.... If i remember correctly, it was either a jazz or blues band. They had come to buy a pair of B&W speakers from me. They loved listening to the B&W before paying and discussed their taste in music and so forth. Before they left, I asked if they wanted to listen to my main system so we went down to my audio room. I put on ITunes so they could choose what they wanted to hear. I think they listened for about an hour. They thanked and said they had never heard music as good as this and that is was a true experience for them both. I took that as a huge complement coming from professional musicians..
I work in an elementary school and one of the teachers is a singer in a rock group that performs on weekends. She knows I am into music in a big way and stopped by my house to give me a cd of the bands latest performance. She looked at my stereo and asked me how much money I had invested. When I told her I spent between 35-40 grand, she remarked that "I didn't know Bose made such expensive stuff"
I had her sit in my listening chair and put on the cd she brought over. Within minutes, she was crying and said she never realized how good her voice really sounded.
I'm not sure if this qualifies as a compliment but when I was muuuuch younger I created a monster system wrapping my maggie tympani's around my bed in the front and a pair of 1.4's in the back. Then I had people sit in the middle of the bed and put on Dark side of the moon or I Robot and you should have seen the looks on their faces when they emerged from behind the screens.......Either they met God or satan but one thing was certain it had a visceral effect!!! Funny Thing is I was using a yamaha cd player and a pioneer integrated amp!! Until I crispy crittered the amp months later!
My dad came to visit. I put on a CD with a well-centered stereo image and he thought the sound was comming from the vents on top of my amplifier! Talk about disappearing speakers.
I have a friend who is a Juno nominated FOH sound guy over one time and he commented on how “clear” the midrange was. He referenced it to a touring VDOSC system driven by Lab Gruppen amps he was using at the time. I consider it a compliment as I have heard his work with smaller ensembles several times and the PA system sound was a model of clarity and resolution. I used to have some of his “off the board” recordings and they were in my opinion reference quality if not totally in the upper realm of soundstage/imaging magic. Other than that most people don’t know/care. If anything, guys want to know how loud it goes, while women would rather not not find out and I suspect question the negative design impact on my living room.....
A long time friend who is a musician and avid music lover but has no special focus on sound quality that I have ever detected was over listening with me the other day and commented how lifelike things sounded and correctly recognized the type and size of the venue where the live recording I was playing was recorded. I was shocked he even gave that a thought! The recording was the live classic rock tracks on "A Change of Seasons" by Dream Theater.
OK, I'm probably going to need a flack jacket, but here it is!
One of my musician friends came over and listened for a while and before he left said "I just love the sound of those McIntosh tube amps"...but my MC452 is solid state!
Great thread. I too love the guy satisfyingly putting his finger on it claiming it as a Samsung and then his zinger of an exit line. It was too good to be offended by.
Mine a friend listening to an obc which we had listened to since we were kids and saying of the long gone Dorothy Collins 'She's live!'
Another a well respected and known in my area audiophile comes over to help me fine tune my system and after puts on his demo record. After a minute or two his head starts bopping and his foot starts tapping and he lets out with a quiet 'Wonderful.'
One funny one was a guy who said, "Does this sound better than my Sonos?" Knowing him, I knew he was be sarcastic.
My wife's parents really admired how the kick drum on Neil Young's "Out on the Weekend" sounded so realistic and palpable. I'll never forget that day.
My wife's cousin, a young (upper 20s) music lover spent 3+ hours solo in my listening room. I'd check in at times. I let him do his thing and play his music, streaming to my tube DAC. He made numerous comments. one I remember was, "This sounds so different than what I'm used to. I'm totally sucked in." Well, he's a music lover so it makes sense.
One of our friends (the wife of the couple) strayed into my room during a party. Her husband spent $50k+ on a whole house custom install. It sounds pretty good to me and it's super slick. She immediately began streaming her favorites from all over the Pop/Rock musical map. Folks started dropping in the room with their drinks. The party just gravitated to the music room. That, not an outward oral compliment, was a compliment of behavior.
My father came to visit during the polar vortex. He would escape every night to the music room, listen and surf. He rarely listens to tunes anymore. He asked for all sorts of artists from Nat King Cole to Sam Cooke to the Doobie Brothers and many more. He kept saying, "I can really hear the instruments" or "Nat King Cole's voice sounds just like it should...God was he a talent."
Many folks come up to the music room and laugh at the whole thing or make jokes like, "Do you have a special insurance rider for all this stuff?"
I agree with folks here who say it's a solo endeavor. I do, however, try to get people to bite and get the bug because high fidelity music is my religion.
I had the musicians over to our house after a string-quartet concert, some pieces also with piano and/or winds. They gravitated to the audio room, and we were up until 2:00 a.m. listening to music.
I don’t really care about the compliments, I get those every time somebody listens to my rig, but when somebody calls and asks for my help to put together a system because I inspired them that really makes me happy.
I had a room at the RMAF using my own personal system and got a few remarks.
“Though I've heard the Wilson-Benesch Curve floorstanders many times before, I found that they sounded spectacularly good as driven by Kara Chaffee's amazing deHavilland tube electronics . Nothing I heard at RMAF, save perhaps for the far more expensive Vandersteen/ARC system, could touch this rig for sheer midrange purity, detail, three-dimensionality ." Chris Martens TAS on the 2009 show.
Best compliment “I just pissed my pants”. After playing Ahmad Jamal live at the Montreal Jazz Festival 1985. Opening track ‘Yellow Fellow’, on vinyl at concert level.
My teen daughter who considers me as an out of touch and uncool anachronism, and has no interest in the basement came down during a work day night at 9pm. She asked what's up? I figured she was looking for something like the car keys. She asked to hear some "jazz." Then some love songs, then Broadway shows, operas, and "weird stuff." 5 hours later, at 2am, I had to call it a night.
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