[fewtch]

My mother came to visit me and my brother today (she lives in Ohio, we live in WA. state)... she's staying in the area about a week.

She knows about my headphone hobby, but never thought much about it (shook her head in disbelief when I said I spent over $600 on headphone-related gear, LOL). She's in her mid 60's, and up until recently listened mostly to cassettes on a car radio -- she finally "graduated" to an in-dash CD player (stock Honda stuff) recently.

Anyway, I invited her to listen to my digital setup (listed in my .sig below), and played excerpts from a couple well recorded pop songs she's familiar with. Her first comment was how big the HD600s are, "nobody's ears are this big"...

She's got a small head though.

After listening, I asked her "does it sounds like it's worth over $600?" She replied without any hesitation "oh yeah... the quality is obvious." Sounded pretty impressed by what she heard.

Felt pretty cool that my mother liked the sound of my setup immediately after listening for less than 5 minutes

. It's nice to get an opinion by someone with *zero* preconceptions and no interest in "audiophile" reproduction.

 

[go_vtec]

Cool!
I got similar reactions when people use their own CDs on my system and hear the details they never heard before. To me head-fi is a descent/economical hobby since it cost significantly less than other hobbies and we can pretty much sell everything back with minimum loss. Try skiing, it could cost significantly more than headphone listening and far more dangerous (I went to E.R. twice last year because of my friends' ski/snowboard related injuries

)

Then again, if you go with Sony R10 or Stax... head-fi may not be so economical

 

[devwild]

I've long realized I'm going to spend my life listenning in awe to all my music each time I get a job that allows me to afford the next step up in gear. Step by step....

Who knows when family will break in to the pattern though

 

[danaa]

I would imagine that she'd be pretty amazed at the sound quality coming out of a great headphone system such as yours. And, I'm with her. The sound quality that comes out of first-rate equipment is almost dumbfounding.

Oh, by the way, very cool mother/very cool son relationship you guys got going on there. I wish all parents and their children could comfortably share/understand each others interests.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by danaa I would imagine that she'd be pretty amazed at the sound quality coming out of a great headphone system such as yours. And, I'm with her. The sound quality that comes out of first-rate equipment is almost dumbfounding.

By the standards of Head-Fi, my equipment is definitely entry-level (except the headphones perhaps)... our standards here are pretty darned high, of course...
Quote:

Oh, by the way, very cool mother/very cool son relationship you guys got going on there. I wish all parents and their children could comfortably share/understand each others interests.

I've got an excellent relationship with my mother. A bit rockier with my father, but that's gotten much better over the past 10-15 years as well.

 

[JeffL]

You don't realize what you're missing until you can hear it...and then you begin to realize that you really do get what you pay for...and then cheap stuff begins to drive you mad, and unless you are skilled at self-control, you begin an endless cycle of upgrading and searching for the perfect sound...

BTW, cassettes have a nice analog sound to them albeit the hiss.

 

[Geek]

It's too bad this doesn't happen to me with my parents; my dad is interested in decent-sounding gear, but he's not really obsessed with high end stuff. My mom could care less, turning down a listen of my $2,500 headphone setup as much as she turns down even trying to drink the energy drinks I occasionally have, poo-pooing them before giving them a chance.

My nerd friends, though, like listening to bass test songs and techno on the HD650s, they get a real kick out of it, no pun intended. They are by no means audiophiles.

Cheers,
Geek

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Geek It's too bad this doesn't happen to me with my parents; my dad is interested in decent-sounding gear, but he's not really obsessed with high end stuff. My mom could care less, turning down a listen of my $2,500 headphone setup as much as she turns down even trying to drink the energy drinks I occasionally have, poo-pooing them before giving them a chance.

Give it some time... as you get older, relationship with your parents undergoes some changes. Particularly when you don't see them very often anymore, things tend to improve (unless there are longstanding terrible grudges), and mutual interests (or at least knowing each other's interests) becomes more important.

My setup is not gonna get my mother into high-end headphone reproduction, but she was happy to sit down for a brief listen...

 

[Jasper994]

A while back my Grandmother had a listen to my rig (she's in her 70's) and she was very impressed. She even bought a pair of PX100's to go with her walkman (yes I tried to talk her into at least a decent PCDP... baby steps...

).

 

[Solude]

If you do it right you can get her to be your hand down person. Pretty much everything I upgrade goes to my mother now. She's got a better system then me now :O Granted she has a lot more money to play with too, grr

 

[GlowWorm]

I had a similar reaction from my mom the first (and last) time she listened to my hp rig. I played the song "Key Largo" by Sarah Vaughn because I feel female vocals are the strong point of my system. She listened to the song all the way to the end, took off my cans and said to me "It sounded like she was right here in the room". My mom obviously has a keen ear.

When my non-audiophile friends come over for the 1st time they almost always point to my MG-Head and ask "What's that?" and then I have to explain it to them. But the hardest thing for me to explain is why I spent $170 on a replacement cable for a $150 headphone.

 

[dan1son]

Yeah i had a similar thing from my girlfriend the first time she heard my MS-1's through the current breadboarded juiced up mint style schematic in non portable form I'm thinking about building. She has always been blessed with a family that enjoys the "better quality" stuff when it comes to sporting gear and so forth, but this was her first experience with better quality audio stuff. She wondered why I spent another $130 on headphones and pads about a month after I got my er-6's. I told her I needed a home phone

. She no longer questions it.

"Whoa..." is the normal reaction I get when placing them on peoples heads. And this is no $600+ hd650 setup...

 

[TeRrAPh0eNiX]

Ms-1 is still pretty expensive, right?

I have the ER-6s; i don't think i can get people to wear those, LOL! they wouldn't have the same sound either, because they won't go too far into their non-er-6-accustomed canals.

 

[Buster Sword]

Quote:

Originally posted by JeffL You don't realize what you're missing until you can hear it...and then you begin to realize that you really do get what you pay for...and then cheap stuff begins to drive you mad, and unless you are skilled at self-control, you begin an endless cycle of upgrading and searching for the perfect sound... BTW, cassettes have a nice analog sound to them albeit the hiss.

Funny, i was never happy with my audio. I always knew i was missing something, but never got to hear the good stuff. Then went to some live shows, several years back...this year got my hands on to audition some good stuff. But i knew somehow the sound coming out of my Moms car speakers at 10 years old was NOT good.

 

[pbirkett]

I invited my dad to listen to my rig, he used to like headphone listening himself, but the best he ever heard before was his old Sony MDR-V1's plugged into a Kenwood mini. When he heard mine, he did say he felt they were superb, but he did say theres no way he'd spend that amount of money on headphones.

Oh well....