My wife has recently became interested. Purchased a NAIM Unity Atom and a pair of Klipsch LaScalas |
There are many reasons, but one of the simplest is this. I don't know what you do for a living, but if a woman does exactly the same thing, she is getting paid less. And that few thousand difference? There goes the discretionary spending that could go into a $50K stereo. Plus, personal expenses? Clothes and grooming? I could go to work in a Bean shirt and sandals and no one batted an eye. None of my female colleagues could do that. (I doubt any single woman has a "listening room"; actually, I've never known a single man who has one!) The women I know who manage to get enough money to spend on music (and many of them do), spend it on concert tickets, or say, a piano. |
You're not alone.
The first time my wife walked into my living room it consisted of the stereo, Sony Profeel, sofa, cardboard box coffee table which supported a twelve inch glass ashtray.
A promotions director for the Quake FM she was impressed by the reel to reel and perfectly comfortable. A deadly combination, I didn't stand a chance.
When I came home with our Avalon Eidolons she was totally stoked. When someone new visits and they ask why are those things in the middle of the room? She'll sit them down and ask if they like music as she's queuing up a side.
Whada' do with a women like that? |
When my wife and I were just roomates partying being our priority I could get her to come sit with me by playing her favorites but we got serious and made a little family and working mom has little free time for herself let alone my hobbies. |
A very happy wife,
Jasmine
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Are you Jasmine? A happy wife? Honestly are you?
After all these years, LOL you're not pulling our leg are you...
Something is a little strange...
The chicken soup is smelling like chicken skat? Excuse me if I seem a little skeptic...
Who are you Mrs Jasmine? Is all that stuff true? No I'm not trying anything goofy. Just say it's so.. :-) I'll believe ya...
Just so YOU know I never enter a room unless someone else is there with me. Unless it's my partner. I enter first, otherwise a hotel staff member or another gentleman, never alone... It was one of the practices of the 40. Billy Graham was the example...and the author of the practice..
Regards |
Some people, including women, simply do not care about and are not moved by what we audiophiles call sound quality. Much of my equipment was inherited and spent some time in my wife's sister's basement. Her sister is a trained musician, she sings classical music and has a great voice. She likes a lot of pop music as well. With some of the hoard of decent audio equipment in her basement I built a reasonably good system with Rotel components and B&W speakers. I set it all up and auditioned it for her and offered to install it in her house. She could not have cared less. Not impressed at all. The gear went back in her basement and sits there to this day.
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Best Christmas wishes to you and yours also.
Enjoy the music.
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Jasmine great post and happy music filled holidays to you as well!
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@justmetoo I in no way doubt your experience. I'm sure that what you suggest applies to many. But there are a good number of others where the reason lies somewhere else.
I have Fridays off so my routine is to bike, clean the house from top to bottom, do the yard work. So when my wife comes home on Friday we are set for on open weekend to relax. I will spend a good number of hours listening to music. She will spend her time with reading or some other interest. So it is not that she feels compelled that she has to be doing some ingrained expectation as you have experienced. And, yes, I often play music SHE likes, but to no avail. We have enjoyed many broadway productions live together. But she is a no-show in the audio room.
Now there are obviously many woman that love music. But a smaller percentage seem to be into the experience of listening intently to reproduced music. In the end, I'm sure the reasons are many and varied. |
With my wife and me it all began in 1968. She had a Lear 8 track stereo in her Chevrolet which sounded worlds better than the squawky AM radio in my old beater. That started the two of us on a search for better and better sound which continues to this day, more than half a century later. We have listened to my DIY speakers for decades. When I told my wife I wanted to build a pair of fully horn loaded speakers for our den that would include a pair of 18 cu.ft. folded corner horns plus midrange and tweeter horns out in the room she not only approved but also spent many hours helping me build them. We both love listening to them.
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Thanks for taking the time to post, Jasmine!
When my wife and I were dating, her only source of music at home was her son's boombox. She wanted to play a song for me, and it had these selectable tone settings like "rock", "country", "classical", etc. It frustrated her because none sounded right. She'd push the different buttons and say "this one's too muddy", "this one's too harsh", "this one has no bass". We finally found a setting that was an okay compromise when a sock was stuffed into one of the ports (my high-tech suggestion).
The first time she came over to my place, I had huge SoundLab electrostats in the living room (I'm a dealer). I had warned her that they were bigger than doors and she didn't seem to mind. Since she was a drummer, I put on a drum solo recording and hoped they'd win her over. She loved them, and started playing air drums, explaining to me the nuances she could hear in the drummer's technique.
I'm now a speaker manufcturer, and nothing goes out the door without her approval, as she has much better ears than I.
Duke
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So much of high end audio is designed to exploit typically masculine traits. Bigger, better, faster, more. Endless dissatisfaction. Endless fretting over what we might be missing and what some other dude says about our stuff. Sure, women are susceptible to these sorts of things too, but typically not so much when it is technical.
My wife rarely listens to my main system. She does not know how to work it even though it is no more complicated than firing up the space shuttle.
She listens to the Sonos speakers I have placed around the house.
But, I recently inherited a pair of Aerial Acoustics 6T towers and she allowed them in our formal living room. For simplicity and minimal impact on the room decor I have them connected to the new Sonos Amp.
Lately, when I come home from work she is in the living room listening to the 6Ts whereas she rarely used that room before. No matter what anyone might suspect, the 6Ts sound lovely and compelling even with a Sonos Amp. She hears that.
And since there is little to no technical crap to deal with or look at, she is drawn to them and enjoys them.
So of course women can and do appreciate SQ. I think they are just less susceptible to falling for the BS that we men insert between the music and our ears. |
@corelli
Not wanting to preempt the OP's response to your 'Perplexity' as to why women - in general - do not take the time to sit down to listen to a piece/pieces of music *at home*.
It is a question of - conditioning - VERY POWERFUL CONDITIONING, as a home-maker, just not to sit about in leasure in ones house(hold) while there are *things* to do, we're learned and trained to do.
This internalised training makes one most uncomfortable 'wasting time', as other household related things, ALWAYS will feel like to have a far higher priority.
Being taken out to the opera, theater, or some other out of house venue will break this sort of 'spell' - which often is close to a self admitted kind of OCD behaviour.
Even for a woman, after the end of a relationship, it is quite difficult to readjust and drop these 'old' habits.
It's literally like learning how 'watching paint dry' - and believe me, THAT is seriously difficult, once you were trained, and to some degree supported by instinct (nest making), to change.
I'm speaking from personal experience,
Michélle 🇿🇦
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I suspect many men on this site are a bit jealous right now.
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We are creatures of passion. It is the type of music that makes all of us alike, not that sets us apart...Understand the person is to understand the music that person loves.. Not what you think they should like!!
A true partnership is based on no ones leads, but I will always follow and with great respect. My FIL taught me that... You show your respect by understanding and LISTENING, with your eyes....He use to say... Smartest person I ever knew, and the most loved..
Man could he Cha Cha Cha... A klipsch guy too, loved the horns...Corner horns... and valve amps... We have all his 78 collection... Wonderfully preserved..
Regards and with GREAT respect... Scotty |
Jasmine,
I suspect many men on this site are a bit jealous right now. I think women are very capable of discerning good sound, perhaps even better than their male counterparts. What I don’t understand is why seemingly fewer woman make it a priority to want to take the time and sit down and do any substantial listening. I can recall only one time where my wife asked to listen to a Hamilton CD--she sat in the sweet spot and loved it. She said it sounded better than the live production she heard in Chicago! But she hasn’t been back since. Just don’t get it. |
I have never seen a lot of other women enthousiastic about quality sound and music. Are there any in this group? Do your wifes experience the same as i did? My mother in law became something of an ally to my audiophilia some time ago when I was demoing speakrs. She has acute hearing and developed a genuine interest in sound reproduction.,We’ve compared notes on equipment ever since and demo’d together numerous devices through the years! My wife however is only interested in the music even though she discerns sonic differences very easily and quickly. Proof of the pudding -- a silver foil speaker cable I tried out last week where she spontaneously remarked that the sound had improved, without being aware that anything had changed in the system |
Well I've had the good fortune of being with the same partner for 46 years this Feb. It was how we met. MUSIC! She lived with her buddies in a condo next to my mothers. I'd visit there would be this great music..
At my mothers urging (she loved to dance) go see whos got the music going.. I did and well MUSIC, dancing and have a good time was the one common thing we shared. As different as night and day, yes we were and still are..
BUT when it comes to music, she loves beautiful things, how it looks, how it sounds. She will get up and move your speakers. I've seen it..
She learned the triangle, she can really position for her listening QUICK.. LOL I got to watch her.. She use to move speakers in "The big stores"
Tugging and pushing 350 - 400 lb speakers, poor sales staff having heart failure. I always said, mind your manners, that purse, is full of money and a gun.... She's pretty quick with both.... Of course I was kidding. There was no money.. :-) I carried a check book, just like her.
Music and Dancing, what else is there... My Hat on the floor... I slowly walk around the hat to the beat of the music, my faithful pup follows me...
The Missus, keep the beat with her castanets, and the taps on one of her favorite dancing shoes... She is a vision of pure beauty, after close to 7 decades of refinement... She makes my heart beat fast to this day...
Olay.. Tap Tap.. Samba..
Regards, fine people... |
Well, thanks for your fine X-mas wishes, and yes, there’s the odd female here enjoying good two channel stereo sound, including good LP playback, and not just the more convenient CD stuff.
Can be seen on my virtual system.
So from me too, a jolly good and merry Christmas to y’all on this forum. 🎄✨
Michélle 🇿🇦
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Congratulations, you are one of a kind. The few women I have seen are good listeners but only one who was really into the seeking out auditioning evaluating part of it. She bought Tekton Moabs after hearing mine. (Her husband came but she did the vast majority of the listening.) Another one I knew confided in me how much she enjoyed my system ("I could listen to this all night!") which was whispered in confidence because the (much more expensive) stuff her husband bought was awful.
I know lots who enjoy good audio, but only one actively involved, and none who had to take over from their husband as you've done. For which, well done!
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