Say your wife or girlfriend (no kid involved) asked you to drop your passion for audio, sell your system and settle for a Bose Wave box - because she thinks that your hobby is a barely grown-up kid toy story that needs to stop (either invasive or expensive or just ridiculous to her friends and family). What do you do? keep wife/girlfriend or your gear? Just respond: Audio or Wife and in brackets years of relationship...
Stereo is predicated on illusion. Some of us seem to be moving over to delusion. I've been with the same woman for 17 years and can't imagine a desire to upgrade. I've been through more than a hundred audio components in that same time. You can't possibly think that a human being is of less value than an amp even if it does have voluptuous tubes and it's self-biasing.
Before you get down on Joeylawn, maybe theres things going on in his life we don't know or understand??? I'm not saying I'm just saying.
Beheme, I had to laugh about your audio mags in the bathroom. I guess when audio becomes more passionate then our sex drives then we know that we arrived. At least arrived to be audio geeks!
You know your an audiophile........ when you spend more time on audio forums then at your job!
Really, all joking aside, I'd like to apologize for my wanna-be sense of hunour. There would be plently of female audiophiles who would be offended by my remarks. So here is my deep and sincere apology to all audiophiles : male, female, heretosexual and bi-sexual alike. My new year resolutions are quiting Dunhill, Cognac and the " blue pills" and respect the opposite gender more. However, I decided to continue checking out the behinds of these black or silver boxes whichever the case may be. I guess one of the man's survival instinc is to check-out these nice behinds from the objects we contemplate.
Actually, I'm not complaining. I'm just pointing out that you are assuming that it is just super easy/automatic to gain a spouse. It's not, at least for some. What seems easy for you can not be done by others. Take composing music for example. Can you whip up a Symphony quick? Mozart sure could. But to most people, it boggles the mind how musicians can do this. Not everybody can.
Lower expectations? If the 'chemistry' isn't there - it won't work, period. Been there, done that.
I do joke in here a lot "What's a wife", but for the record, I am divorced.
As far as being in the 'middle of nowhere' - not too far off. I live in a One-Horse Southern Capitol of the Confederacy That Isn't Richmond. All the good ones are 'taken' and taken early. Most around here marry VERY early.
But the main reason I am single is I refuse to play the social game. I stay home and play music and use the computer every night. I have no interest whatsoever in 'going out'. I don't care anymore.
I don't really mean to get too personal here. But let's not kid ourselves. NOBODY has EVER left their spouse because he/she has bought too much stereo equipment (unless the buyer has a dependency-type shopaholic problem that has ruined the finances). The point I am rambling toward ;) is this: Appreciate the blessings of a spouse that you have. Don't take it for granted.
Lastly, let me add this: The opposite is also very true. Many people (for instance 99% of people in Africa) have Families, but cannot afford stereo equipment.
Ok, this is getting waaaay toooo serious. Now, wife, audio or dog? we recently saw a fellow Agoner selling his speakers because his cat had p#%@@ all over them and he chose the cat over audio...how many would have gunned the cat out? Apparently, if you skin the cat the right way, you can get a pitch that goes way over SACD's 40+kHz.
01-10-07: Joeylawn36111 But the main reason I am single is I refuse to play the social game. I stay home and play music and use the computer every night. I have no interest whatsoever in 'going out'. I don't care anymore.
Well that explains a lot. You won't catch any fish if you don't go fishing. Just don't complain that you wish you had fish.
You've been married before, so you know that marriage isn't always pleasant. Half of my family (8 siblings) are divorced, and the other half wish they could afford it. :)
Obviously I joke, but there is some truth in my jokes. While I am still married after 23 years, there was a long time, maybe 15 years, where I was only married due to the 'cheaper to keep 'er' mentality. Of course I wanted to live with my children too, so I bit the bullet. Now, 3 years since she had her hysterectomy, she is a normal human being again. Marriage isn't so tough now. If I knew the results would be, I'd have made her have the operation years sooner.
I do realize that 'happily married' is just another oxymoron, like 'army intelligence' and 'jumbo shrimp'. :)
Seriously, I do have three sons, and I do worry that they are getting too serious to young. I do tell them to 'play the field' and 'have some fun'. Don't get too serious too young, that's where most of the mistakes get made. They don't listen though, oh well, at least some day I can tell them 'I told you so'.
I just have to ask, if a woman truely interest you, have you tried the internet sites for women instead of audio equipment?
FWIW, sadly now I have Stereophile replacing Playboys in the bathroom as well. That just means I'm old, like my kids keep telling me. :(
Sorry to get too serious. I'm ok. (now - LOL) When I wrote "I get the friend part, but what's a girl?" I was laughing. I tend to go off on a rant sometimes, sorry.
Gunbei, since that guy that played Kramer on Seinfeld now has to lay low because of his 'rant', there's an opening for another Standup Comedian, so Go For It!! ;)
While I am still married after 23 years, there was a long time, maybe 15 years, where I was only married due to the 'cheaper to keep 'er' mentality. Of course I wanted to live with my children too, so I bit the bullet. Now, 3 years since she had her hysterectomy, she is a normal human being again. Marriage isn't so tough now. If I knew the results would be, I'd have made her have the operation years sooner. I do realize that 'happily married' is just another oxymoron, like 'army intelligence' and 'jumbo shrimp'. :)
I believe this is the single funniest, most outrageous yet most realistic view of marriage that I ever read or heard...and I like redneck stuff a lot - for fun of course....I suggest you sell this line to any standup comedian or even Hollywood and you could live rich and in true extreme Hifi for the rest of your life. Tell me, what do I have to do to get my wife from hysteric to hysterectomized?
This might not be the right place for this post but: I can't believe all the people that think stuff is more important than relationships. Just because a system doesn't usually make your life difficult, doesn't mean the system can actually give you anything. It also cannot provide the joy of a real, loving relationship.
I used to think it was too bad that TV has become so dominant in our culture. People used to sit on the porch and talk to their neighbors, now people don't even know their neighbors! They spend their time in front of the boob tube or the rectifier tube and have no contact with people other than when required by their jobs. People think their own personal pleasure is the ultimate good, but people have never been less satisfied.
My wife would not require me to sell my system, but she is more important to me than all the equipment in the world. Our relationship has it's bad times (this is one of them right now) but she still supercedes all the stuff in front of my listening chair.
I've never heard words of consolation at a funeral given by a stereo system. All those electronics don't care one bit about you or your love of music. You mean nothing to your system! The tears come from your loved ones...
If I remember well, we got off the wrong foot last time we stumble don each other in a thread...and since I know what you went through, I must agree with your post.
This being said, you have to take 90% of these posts with a grain of salt and keep your sense of humor. Wife vs. audio is a no-brainer for most of us: with time, most audio gear improve while women tend to lose all of their appeal. So go out there, trade, auction The old wife out with No Reserve!!!!
Andrewdoan, did I, really?!!!! gotta be kidding, just with the food, water and heat she sucked in the last 20 yrs I would have a $100,000 system in front of me...letting her go would cost more though...damned if you do, damned if you don't...
From chatting ealier on this thread, I got the vibe many of the guys where being phesesous and moreless joking around that their systems and music was more important.
At least I hope they where moreless joking around! If not, thats a sad state of where our great country has gone and unforunatey going further.
Well... it might depend on whether Duchess delivered it as a request, or an ultimatum. I don't take kindly to ultimatums, but then she's long since figured that out.
Since I'm a home-based dealer, the message would also be "git up off yo' wuthless a$$ an' git a REEL job!"
Freemand, mostly just joking around. There is no replacement for the women that we fall in love with. People change in according to the enviroment, career...Different thing happens to different people for a different reason. I believe the disposable income I spend on audio gears is well-spended. At least, I do not blow my money at the Casino or titty bars.
may be this should have been the thread: audio or titty bar - where the sound is crappy!!!!! humm, who wants to get in business with me: the audiophile Titty bar, dances on 2-ch hi-end system, called "Tit and Tweeter"? "and now please welcome JEEEENNIFER and a pair of Avalon Isis!"
Beheme, sorry to take your thread into another direction. Really, I know a guy who used to own a hi-end audio dealer and recently he talked about hi-end "coffee shop" with hi-end sounds, serving fine Cognac by hi-maintenance-waitress. Black jackets required.It is amazing how "great mind" has the same thouhgt.
The only difference between that guy and me is that he made it happen. As to whether this makes sense or not - as much as this thread - is another debate. At the risk of hearing anymore pseudo-romantic whining by emotionally challenged mammals, we'd rather hijack this thread for real and fun.
Look women are like tube systems; they need constant attention and make noises all the time and you can't figure out where the noise is coming from and biasing sometimes becomes futile......
So I went solidstate (and wish I had the patience and time for tubes) and still date...... my view is get all your toys in order and then compromising later is less of an issue because they know what they are getting into...
Plus catching your girlfriend surfing on the tabletpc while watching the 103" projector and talking on the VOIP phone with a glass a wine.... You know she isn't going to ask you to get rid of technology... Oh yeah make sure to get her a bluetooth wireless headset for her cellphone...
Andrewdoan: I learned that if you don't let them move in, it's not that expensive..... at least my stereo system is consistent so it's ok if the women are variable?
Plus the less time I spend on Agon the more money to go out with the ladies.. Remember always go to their place; never your place on the first 3 dates (sets the wrong expectations...)
I'd keep my wife because she would never make me make that choice. She knows I love my systems and I don't believe she would put me on the spot. If she did I'd have to keep the stereo out of principle let alone my love of my toys.
Steve, sometimes a wife can help you get your audio stuff. My wife makes upwards of 6 figures, and she don't go and spend much. She uses coupons still, buys clothes used at consignment stores.
Most importantly, she lets me buy what I want for the theater.
I know thats not the norm, but being single would be worse for buying my audio
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