Similarly my wife has little to no interest at all in my hobby. For my wife headphones and iem’s are purely a tool you need to use to listen to the music. She has zero interest in any of it. Her eyes just glaze over whenever I start talking about iem’s. Lol.
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LOL!!! My lady has a great poker face when I talk about gear haha! I do the same back when shestarts to nerd out on video game although I am actually interested in most of what she says in that department but it does go off in lala land sometimes as well as my talking about comparisons and upgrades. I’m sure it gets pretty hard to keep up once I start spewing appreviations and such, kinda like speaking tongues haha!
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I think it’s partly due to males getting more into the gear, with females focusing more on the music and aesthetics.
A separate but possibly related consideration is the age demographic of audiophiles, and historical salaries/disposable income/breadwinner trends by gender.
In my experience, similar to other senses, females can tend to have more acute sensory perception compared to males; vocabulary and communication are something different.
EAT is one instance of a female led audio company: https://www.europeanaudioteam.com/en/about-european-audio-team-wp000004.html
I was reminded of a Steve G video. I found them. They’re in the comments jk.
It looks like Paul has a video on this topic too.
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If my wife ever complains about what I have spent on my hobbies I just remind her to go look in the closet, well actually closets… the financial balance regarding luxury purchases is demonstrably in her favour.
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Oh its a slow multistep process with mine. So I had to structure my approach with the ultimate aim of first making listening to music extremely accessible and “naturally” be part of her lifestyle.
Phase 1: I did this by first getting her a beige Sony XM3. I paired it for her, installed tidal, spotify and qobuz on her phone and macbook. Left her to marinade with that setup for a month. Every now and then I’d subtly suggest her to take the XM3 with her when she’s going out. Until it was obvious that she’s made it a habit.
Phase 2: I proceeded with going through the songs/singers she listens to. Mission is to find songs or singers which higher fidelity audio gear could make the most impressionable difference. She listens to mostly kpop songs but all hopes not lost… I found what I could work with… Mariah Carey!
Phase 3: I took out the XM3 packaging box and sat next to her and went through its contents, acted surprised that there was a 3.5mm cable included in the box and rhetorically asked what could it be for since its a wireless headphone. I connected an ifi zen dac to her macbook and wired the XM3 to it and “randomly” chose My All by Mariah Carey. Acted amused and passed the XM3 to her and asked what she thought of the sound. She liked it! After going through a few songs, i told her she should continue listening music from her laptop with the wired config and told her she could keep the zen dac for her laptop. She didn’t use it as much as I would’ve liked but thats fine… for now…
Phase 4: I build a playlist for her on my system, My All, When You Believe, The Prayer by Celine Dion/Andrea Bocelli, Stay by Blackpink, Can You See My Heart by Heize, Wayo by Bang Ye Dam, Eyes Nose Lips by Taeyang and Goodbye by Soyou. Enthusiastically dragged her in my cave, sat her down, put an hd800s on her head and pressed play. After My All, I paused the music, switched her to the heddphone and hit play again… dimmed the lights and sat next to her enjoying the sound bleed.
At the end of it, on her own volition she asked if she could use the hd800s for her laptop. I unplugged the xlr cable from it, plugged a pentaconn cable (for the zen dac) to them, past it to her and said yes with a smile!
I know its not going to be near as nice as my setup but, thats a Mission Accomplished for me! Hahaha
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And then my wife would point towards my watches and pens… its end of story right there lol. Dont try to win against them, it always backfires somehow haha
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Ha! Not looking for win, just some balance. 
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Great story, thank you for sharing it. I love to hear about stuff like this.
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Very smooth moves haha!
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Not headphones at first, but I had my best luck in the evening, pouring 2 glasses of red wine, and getting her to listen to a selection of great music that I thought she might enjoy. On my main stereo system. Give her the good seat. It’s all about the music. We exchange ideas about the music – the performance, the songs, lyrics, the quality of production. The background, the history. In the end, isn’t that what got us all hooked – the music? And, remember – guy music can be different from gal music. And different gals have different tastes. Build a playlist for her. Try Jimmy Smith, Prayer Meetin’. Best of Cowboy Junkies. Eva Cassidy Live at Blues Alley. Magnificat by Trondheim Soloists. Freedom Highway by The Staple Singers. Vaughan Williams/Barber/Grainger/Satie by Slatkin/St Louis on Telarc 1981. Throw in some hits from her school days. Then pour more wine, give her your headphones, and play her faves. 
(For Christmas, give her a high quality streaming service for her laptop, Dragonfly Red, and Sennheiser HD600’s.) The idea for me was to make music a social/sharing experience. (Headphones can work against this “shared” aspect.) Take time out of your day, be together to do just music and wine.
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Bingo! Women often find pleasure in social interaction and shared experiences. Men often find pleasure in gear, engineering, and working alone. Headphones are not social devices.
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Then why are we here on this forum? 
Seriously though my wife has her hobbies (that cost $$) and I have mine (that cost $$$ 
). There are also interests we have in common that we share experiences in such as movies. So what is the difference between an interest and a hobby? 
Like we are both interested in music and even share a certain amount of musical taste. I get excited to share with her a new piece of music that I really like and vice-versa. But I’m the only one who is interested in the technical aspects of music reproduction like headphones. OTOH we both enjoy art and share some amount of taste there too. Yet she not only creates works of art but is interested in the technical aspects creating it like inks, papers, and pens.
Sorry no particular point I’m trying to make. Just riffing on the subject.
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We are gearheads of the headphone audio experience. Objectivists are gearheads of the hardware. Pure subjectivists are…maybe gear-eyeball-heads or feelings-heads rather than gearheads…?
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Haha, not in this house! We both listen to a lot of extreme music haha!
This is the style of music she likes a lot:
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Oh, well, of course. I forgot about Mongolian Folk-Rock-Death-Metal.
You got yourself a keeper there.
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The Hu also did the intro for Jedi Fallen Order. Probably one of my favourite band discoveries of last year!
My wife on the other hand, not quite as excited haha.
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Thanks for the new music tip.
I’ll just started a new Playlist – Mongolian Throat-Singing-Folk-Rock-Death-Metal.
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Love their music! I think they did some stuff for ghost of Tsushima as well! Fantastic game!
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Ha, that seems to be common among reviewers then! My girlfriend did the exact same, and then she got me a full chest of drawers where I can put all my headphones.
I won’t ever get my girlfriend to be into headphones, though. She’s more of a sung song kind of music listener, so she doesn’t appreciate listening to the music itself - she’s more into listening to the lyrics rather than listening to the musical aspect. In fact I suspect she might be a bit tone-deaf, but that’s a supposition of mine.
She is very supportive and when I get one of those moments when I start rambling about audio stuff she listens to me very carefully, only to then say: “I don’t understand half of what you’re saying, but I really admire your passion!”. Which is among the sweetest things that ever happened to me! I try to be as supportive of her hobbies (she’s been into growing plants indoors lately).
I think that’s the key to happiness: finding someone whom you are comfortable sharing your hobbies with and who supports you!
(but she complains that my stuff takes up a lot of space anyway, so there’s that, too)
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Yes, that’s a nice sentiment and a good way of putting it. I find it’s enough that my wife lets me prattle on and takes an interest, and I try to do the same. It’s also great when our significant others’ hobbies make our surroundings nicer, as with the indoor plants. My wife enjoys crafting and our place is prettier thanks to her creations.
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