How do you get your significant other into audio gear? The way I have gone about it is to…wait a minute, What am I talking about? How do you do it?? I need to know haha!
(Edit: I’m not being serious here, I’m not serious in finding out how but simply what other’s situations with their partners and if they share hifi together. I’ve learned my fiance is just not into it at all and there is no changing that.)
So I took my fiancé down to a local hifi shop and they had a wall of headphones ranging from $100 Sony’s to $3k Focal’s and tons more in the middle. I proceeded to fall in love with the Focal Utopias and had her try them. “I don’t like them, they are too airy. I like these though” as she points to the cheapest Sony’s after trying on about 3 or 4 others. After that she just sat there and proceeded to show the I’m waiting face haha. Another time I tried to have her listen with the audeze isine20’s for when she exercises. Nope, She loves her iPods and they are the ones that she likes most.
Well as you can see I stopped trying and over the years I’ve noticed she likes listening to my 2 channel setup but merely for background music.I’ll take that!
I’m interested in why some people hear good fidelity and jump around while others hear it and appreciate it but then move on?
One thing that I’ve found that I’m super grateful is that she unconditionally accepts that I’m an audiophile and that it is a very important hobby to me. That in of itself is a great wonder and am totally happily content with that.Also, I’m stoked that there is someone to pull me back to grips from time to time getting me in bed when I’m stuck jamming tunes at 3am. If it was up to me I would stay up all night or at least fall asleep on my couch with headphones on.
**This was intended to be a fun rant and wonder what other people’s situations are?
My lady is into video games a lot while I’m more into music although if you pull out a N64 or Super Nintendo and I’ll go to war! I do like modern games too but they are a totally different beast.
I don’t think there’s much you can do. Partly personality or priorities, and partly female thinking.
My wife has resisted my offers of ‘better’ audio items for quite a while. She loves a set of very basic $15 panda bear IEMs because…pandas… I used to have a bunch of cheap IEMs and she routinely selected the cheapest ones to ‘use them up’ and get rid of them [I therefore sold many and kept the better ones]. She refused to try my noise canceling headphones in public because of fashion…“I’m a woman and won’t wear headphones if others can see me”… She did latch onto my AudioQuest NightHawk Carbons as they are extremely bassy and pair well with her electric piano. Finally, she accepted some Bluetooth IEMs because they are great for moving around the house and multi-tasking.
Yea, I understand there is nothing I can do as ive tried lol! I did get her to at least say that two headphones were not horrible as she didn’t get the echoes she hates, her words. They were modhouse argons and focal elegia. However she said she hated how they felt and would never use them over her earpods.
She really wants raycons iems as they are advertised by a few youtubers we watch one being called Leon Lush, although she just likes the hype and probably wouldn’t like them once they got here.
This post was just a good thread to talk smack about the difficulties in relationships in all good fun. Its not a big deal that she isnt into audio, I just thought a lot of people can relate and maybe have some fun talking about the matter.
@generic that’s awesome that she liked the Nighthawks. In my situation Too much bass was a complaint I heard a lot about haha
Yeah I don’t think there’s much you can do to pull her in, best you can do is to ensure that you’re not giving her any reason to feel negatively about your hobby. If there’s a chance, she’ll show interest eventually. And be thoughtful of her preferences, she may not be interested in a Utopia, but she might see the light when she hears a high-end headphone with a warmer/bassier sound signature.
Special use case. Piano tone is mainly in the lows and mids. Most headphones cut the lows so the low piano notes are weak. I myself only use the Nighthawk for overly bright music sources. Its high range is very rough, so they aren’t very versatile for general use.
Congratulations to O.P. on a wonderful thread. It’s rather droll & revealing of human nature.
My wife couldn’t care less about audio…with all the great gear I’ve had over the years, not once did she actually listen to a tune on any of it. Never once picked up a headphone. Also never ever expressed any interest in a succession of John Deere lawn tractors, the latest & greatest of which is one of the sexiest inananimate objects I’ve yet encountered.
Now & then I comment on these things. She responds by saying, “Do you really want me to be like you? Be careful what you wish for–you’d totally hate me.”
Learned a long time ago, you don’t try and change people.
If she’s not interested, she’s not interested, if she shows an interest great encourage it.
My wife wanted to try a headphone recently so I dug out a whole system for her, gave her 3 different headphones to try, but all she really wanted was something that was comfortable she could plug directly into her laptop, so she ended up with my HD598’s.
She leaves me alone with my hobbies.
My wife gets the differences in the level of gear I have compared to what we used to have. I think she might be deaf though. I had her listening to something and she kept turning the pot up. I generally don’t go past 2, she was passing 7 when I intervened.
She’s a concert goer, me not so much, different tastes in music. I’m not into 20k crowd sizes and I end up always thinking about how to most efficiently get out afterwards.
She understands that I like this stuff so she just leaves me be. If she, or my daughter ever want to come listen, awesome, but I’m cool if not. Plus there’s this trend in my house of things I get for myself somehow ending up having their ownership transferred to other occupants.
Headphones are tough because of individual listening. However, she may find the Focal headphone cases/bags to be fashionable as a hook.
Your best bet may be joint listening on speakers.
Whereas guys can start with the gear, with females maybe start with attending live performances together (when circumstances permit) and maybe that’ll lead to joint enjoyment of the music at home – if that’s your objective.
And amps with his and hers (Jack and Jill) dual outputs.
I don’t want to turn my wife into a “headphone lover”! This is not an open relationship!
I was pleasantly surprised that my wife (unprompted) could easily hear the improvement in clarity between my Sennheiser Momentum and my Oppo PM-3. She described going back to the Momentum “like listening through a diaper”.
That said she doesn’t involve herself in the audiophile headphones hobby due to some health issues that complicate her wearing most headphone designs as well as listening to loud music. I think the fact that she primarily listens for the lyrics means she puts less of a priority on overall frequency response too. Currently she is very happy with a pair of Koss KPH30i, which I am pretty impressed with also.
And at the risk of sounding sexist I would say that in general, men are more into “gadgets” than women.
Is there anything fundamentally wrong with this opinion? At least she’s paying attention.
I’m fine either way if she takes an interest or not. Joint and individual hobbies are both healthy. She just better not obstruct! We enjoy going to concerts and musicals together.
She has transformed the word DAC into a verb, so whenever I partake in anything audio, her response is “are you DAC’ing again?!”
So, my wife’s headphone collection was mostly airpods/airpod pros and whatever bose ANC headphone was popular. She then switched to the B&O ANC headphone lineup because they are more attractive.
She’s been questioning why I have so much headphone gear and she’s kind of accepted that I get a lot of demos and samples as well as my own stuff that now shes like ok, ill try them too since you get so many to use.
This also was due to the fact that shes at home more and her recent need for ANC has basically been nil. She still uses her Airpod Pros for working out though.
That said, she started first by taking my Fostex/e-mu rosewood headphones and absolutely loves them. She was quite disappointed in her new $800 B&O headphones that she just got after hearing those. Then she grabbed my HD600 as well since “it’s just sitting on the headphone stand…” and then immediately took the headphone stand too.
Then she’s like, you review a lot of IEMs, gimme some.
So she literally tried on dozens of IEMs I had and settled on my Dunu SA6 and Mini MEST as “her’s” now. She still uses her airpod pros the most though. Oh, and now I got her a DAP – though not a great one. She wanted the Mighty player since it can sync Spotify playlists and it’s small and has no screen, since she otherwise just uses her iphone or ipad for music.
So far, she has had no interest in my ZMF or Hifiman, mostly due to weight and size, but shes definitely tried them on before.
She’s not a fan of my PortaPro though. Too hipster retro.
Oh, she’s refused, thus far, for a desktop amp/dac setup, even though I have this small iFi ZEN DAC ready for her.
I can’t turn her into a headphone lover, but she came with me to pick up the VPI Prime Scout near Philadelphia, and she became a Wilson Audio Lover. She thinks that the Sabrina’s would look nice in the house, preferred the sound of the Alexia’s, and would probably allow a Yvette or maybe even let me buy a Sasha DAW if/when I encounter real money.
She’s OK listening to the Hive Nectar for a while. Hates IEMs.
I wonder why most audiophiles are men? Are we just more prone to be obsessive compulsive collectors?
My wife appreciates good sound, particularly in our home theater, but for music, she’s more focused on convenience over fidelity, so she generally listens to Apple Music from her iPhone, using Sony Bluetooth headphones. It’s not that she doesn’t care, she absolutely does, but once the sound quality reaches a certain threshold, it’s good enough, and she moves on.
@AudioTool my fiance has better ears than me too! I do ask her for her advice about comparing amps, headphones, etc. and most of the time she hear the exact differences.
Bjt she could care less about sitting in the sweet spot haha. I read somewhere that Women hear better than men and an example why is because they are naturally have to hear sounds from babies better than us. I don’t know how correct it is but was interesting to think about.
My wife was wowed by my HD 800 and was astonished at how different it was to listening to music out of Apple earbuds. But, beyond that one experience, she’s not fussed by audio gear. I got her one of those cute little Ultimate Ears Wonderboom wireless speakers so she can take it with her to play tunes wherever she happens to be at home, and she loves it.
What’s great, though, is that she takes an interest in my enthusiasms and lets me prattle on about audio stuff. I do the same for her hobbies. For this I’m grateful and lucky. If she didn’t take an interest, I suspect I’d post about 25% more on this forum…
She also finds all of our audio terminology - and our descriptions of sound qualities - to be hilarious.
