I got my first set of serious equipment while she was in her home country visiting family. When asked, I just explained how "cheap' it all was, knowing myself that I was speaking in relative terms. She accepted it pretty well because it all sounded so great, although in her mind it hampered her ability to use closet space. I later explained my new CD player away based on it having originated in my ancestral country. She raised eyebrows, but accepted it fine once she heard how wonderful everything sounds through it. A long time later I showed-up with a second set of speakers. This time wasn't so easy. I explained that, because of my hearing loss on one side, I needed 4 speakers so that I can always hear everything even when I turn my head. She pretended to accept that. The new cables were fine until she tripped over them. If I was able to stop talking about speakers all the time, especially just before sleeping, she might have been more accepting about my third set that I put in another room. That lead to threats and things got rough for a while. It seemed logical for me to justify the new amp to match the new speakers, but less so to her. The DAC needed to play flac files from my Mac into the new amp didn't go over too well, even after all my explanations about vintage amps and ultra-high-tech DACs and stuff. She loves to tell me it sounds awful while trying to get me to sign divorce papers. To patch things up, I invited her to come with me to the shop to listen to main speakers to match the "small" ones I put in the other room. That didn't go over so well. I think the shop has hired new security to fend her off. The second set of speakers in the other room have left her no place to hang clothes, which has given me a good excuse to raise the issue of moving to a bigger house. After all, the new speakers are surely too big for this room, so therefore I need a bigger room. When tubes arrive from America and she needs to sign for them, it takes some real effort to patch things up. I took her to a great restaurant and she was happy at first, until she noticed it was just behind the stereo shop. When I tried to explain that I just needed a short piece of optical cabling for the DAC, that was it: threats of divorce turned to weapons being waved. I promised her I'd stop being an audio freak immediately, and I stuck to it, except for the pair of speakers that I swapped a few days later for my second listening room. They looked almost identical, so I figured she would never find out they were twice the price, even if she noticed they were there. The first 3 seconds of sound, and she was storming into the room, wielding a samurai sword. Life goes on...
