Need help for wife acceptance

Buy some halcro monoblocks and put fake plants on them (she'll never know).

Piet, i have to warn you now before things get out of control. If you ever get your system running the way that you want, your wife WILL hear the difference and understand where you and the rest of us are coming from. In turn, she will go back to work at Bose, badmouth the company products and lose her job. Since times are tough right now, you might want to wait to get things "dialed in" until the economy picks back up somewhat. At least she'll be able to find a decent job if / when she does "speak the truth" to her bosses : ) Sean
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PS... It took "guts" to admit where she works at : )

My dear girlfriend thanks you kindly for that remark, Sean. Admitting my gear will sound better, she just does not want me to invest too much in this hobby/addiction.

Hey, Piet -

If your wife doesn't want you to spend too much money AND wants to hide the amps; then it seems to me that you have now been put into a win/lose position.

Now, when you say 2 ML33h power - are you saying the Mark Levinson Nº33 Reference Monaural Power Amplifiers?
If so, how could ANYONE want to HIDE those puppies! So sleek and powerful!

Cables are EXPENSIVE. Wouldn’t you also need IC's for the preamp?
Maybe you should go out and start looking at cables (what you need if the gear stays close - zero - and what you would need to hide it). Most folks, that are not intimately into this hobby, don’t realize how expensive cabling can be. After all, we're not going down to Good Guys and buying a roll of electrical cord -
(- now let's NOT turn this thread into ONE of THOSE please ;-} )
With the gear that you have, you can't settle for cheap cables to meet the "spend no money" requirement. You could kill the whole setup in one cheap spending spree.

I believe that by helping your wife understand that these things go hand in hand, it may help her to understand why you would either NOT hide them (and who would WANT to!) or that you're gonna be spending more $.

I think that most of these type situations can be resolved peacefully if the man takes a little more time to help his wife/girlfriend understand WHY and not just WHEN and WHAT.

Just my two cents -
Best of luck
AJ

Since I am a female, I will try to answer this one with that in mind. Years ago, before I got involved in hi-end stereo, I used to look at wires, speakers, stereo equipment as just cluttered furniture. After I started getting interested in the high end, I started looking at them in a different way - more like part of the atmosphere of a room. If you can get her more interested in this hobby, she will start looking at them from a different perspective. Does she listen to the music with you? Ask her what some of her favorite music is, then buy some cd's for her and listen together. Hope this helps