[stewtheking]

Luckily, most members of my immediate family have a similar expenditure that I can use in an argument situation. My Dad used to be an audio/electronics junkie when he was younger, building his own amps and whatnot, so he's a pushover. My Mum is an amateur musician, and owns no less than 8 or 9 recorders, so those conversations are very easy

"why, stew, did you just spend all that money on those?"
"why did YOU just spend all that money on THOSE?"
"but... it's not the same"
"how? they both make music!"

My brother is a bike fanatic, spending a few hundred a pop on bikes every now and again.

Most people have their "thing" that they spend their money on and can get all geeky and worked up over. The secret is convincing them that their perfectly reasonable hobby is just the same as our completely wallet-murdering one!

Stew

That said... I am hiding the receipts for stuff now... and halving the price when i tell people, and they still go "wow!"

 

[jonnywolfet]

i just say;
the dac on my portable, while adequate for casual listening, is clearly underpowered and incapable of playing music to anywhere near its full potential due to its minature nature. audiophile quality is usually an afterthought to companies manufacturing portable devices. taking a line out signal on the otherhand, allows me to avoid all the complications and shotcomings of the internal amp. my external amp uses a cleaner power supply, and higher current draw, which increases performance. the electronics used inside the amp are for the sole purpose of amplifing, are all chosen with audio quality in mind, thus reducing the effect of cross-talk or other electrical disturbances that are present on a circuit doing more than one task. external amplifiers have a better circuit design as far as audio quality is concerned.
all this really means is that to my ears, it makes the music sound better.

if im feeling naughty, ill bust out the jargon and waffle about op-amp's, the various differences in caps, ofc wiring, star grounding, treads ect...

my friends understand (some are genuinely interested, and have commisioned amps off of me, my mate just got a cmoy + ksc75, and is all

now) my girlfriend would understaned if she even remotely cared, my mother thinks im just crazy.

 

[mojoman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KenW Actually, I "hide" it in plain view. To her, the gear all looks the same. VCR...headphone amp...doesn't really matter as it's all "electrical junk"and of little interest to her. Hey, she doesn't ask and I don't tell.

I do much the same thing. However, when I bought the K701s she did say something like "and why is that headphone any different from all those others". I just put on the Jackson Browne Solo Acoustic cd and said "take a listen". After about 20 minutes she said "it sounds like he's standing right here in the room". Case closed.

 

[bhd812]

Well...

My family is usually over my house every sunday so some how it became a speaker day for us. Either my brothers and I will sit back and listen to some new cd's/records some one picked up or we will play games like "bet a $1 who can guess the artist/band who made the song."...but usually We are listening for a good couple of hours to my speakers. this started when I built the diy tube amp kit and had to burn it in so playing the speakers all day no matter who is there just became a usual thing. My brothers and I will sometimes do some tube swapping, one does care about the changes while the other Brother just makes fun of the lyrics or the music. But my entire family had heard the difference from a headphone amp. One day My uncle said the IPOD output can not be good..Next thing you know he was listening to the Grado ps-1's driven by a sr-71,cardas mini,turbodock,ipod..well he won't say that again..lol

My friends know my hobby so we just talk about what new toys I got, but none of them care to listen.

Girls I have in my life at that moment usually do the most listening though. Many of nights have the headphone's or speakers been listened to this way by them..not sure how that always works out but it oddly does one girl after the other. I guess when they walk in my room the first time all they see is music cds,lps,stereo equiment and they start going threw the music collection..which then leads to listening to the music collection, which then leads to switching out tubes,headphones,formats (say if I have the same album on cd and on lp),headphone amps are usually switched to...then they leave after that cause the sun is coming up..

but lately I have been working nights so thats done.