what are your tricks for getting the waf aka wife approval factor on buying speakers? - Page 2

That says a lot

But seriously, being married is about making joint decisions of the layout of your house and about significant buying decisions (and, and and..).

A nice HT (or 2.1) will be a significant purchase and will significantly impact how a room looks.

"Parenting" or "mothering" is somewhat condescending, WAF is part of enjoying someone's company and life

Now the best path is getting WAF for a room (i.e. man-cave) where all subsequent decisions may be made with reckless abandon (given adequate budget, of course) - now we're talking
Edited by rick240 - 12/1/12 at 6:44pm

I bought the B&W N804 when I was single. Had them for 8 years (married for 6) and got the wife used to good speakers.

Then When it was time to upgrade I told her I was getting 'slightly' bigger versions as I couldn't possible get the same exact speakers (804Diamonds) .

Baam...802 Diamonds in the house...

To say she was shocked was an understatement.....

I have no problem with the wife....she enjoys HT as much as I do. My setup is currently in our LR. I wonder how many wife's would let you hang a 50" plasma from the ceiling so a 110" motorized screen can drop down in front of 3 RF7IIs and my 6 shelf A/V rack. She's a keeper

I can agree with your points. I guess, my irritation comes from reading all the posts over the years from guys worrying so much about their wives. Like I said, as long as my wife/girlfriend isn't knocking a wall down or tearing the roof off, it doesn't really bother me what she decides to purchase, so long as it isn't putting us in the poor house. I just can't believe that going out and buying a couple of speakers or piece of AV equipment and adding it to a living room would upset anyone.

Perhaps, it's due to misunderstanding or over-exaggeration on the part of some people telling their stories.

Here's what I did:
I bought some used Bose off Craigslist and hooked them up. Every time she complained that the sound was muffled and she can't hear what the hell they're saying, I'd tell her it's those crummy Bose and what we really need is some higher quaility speakers.
After a while she said, fix it! I don't care how.
Now I have Salk SCST and SCSC and now it's fixed
Now I need a plan to get a Parasound amp

I thought that was, "all highs, no lows."

This isn't my example but it is an example of an extreme case that I read on reddit. One man was trying to figure out how to use all ceiling speakers in his HT because his SO would not compromise on the front stage being cluttered by speakers. Even in-wall units were a no-no. It finally came to the point where the thread was saying to just give the room up when it came to sound and/or reach some other compromise. It started to get a bit heated talking about how the SO was being unreasonable and how it was going to be a deal breaker, but in the end, you make your own priorities. Seems like real first world problems to me.

My wife pretty much lets me do whatever I want, but out of respect I ALWAYS ask her what she thinks of something, long as whatever I buy thats going to be any sort of visual in the room sort of matches teh rest of the decor she doesn't give a ****.

As far as they money part goes, so long as the bills are paid, I spend a little on here here and there, I have free reign to do whatever I want with my money.

In my situation, bribing won't work. She is the breadwinner out of us two, lol. The biggest reason for her saying no to speakers is space because I want big floorstanders. Marriage is about comprimise, I went years without big speakers since we currently live in a 815 sq ft condo and been moving around a lot to small apartments. I also have lots of workout equipment in the bedroom even though the condo complex has a exercise room, so it's not like I never get my way. A few years ago, she told me I can keep my speakers or my workout equipment, but can't keep both. I love my power rack and weights, so I kept them and sold my speakers.

But now, we are moving to a 2000 sq ft townhouse in a couple weeks. I get two of the rooms to do whatever I want. But, speakers in the living room probably have to look okay to her. She just approved a $2000 budget on speakers.

Good post.

How about this one? The acronym for Bose is Buy Other Sound Equipment.

It is better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

I don't have a man-cave.

In the media/HT room, when we moved in we had an old JVC HTIB that I had.

I upgraded in steps...

...first to KEF iQ1 and iQ2 for the front and KEF 2001 for the rears, and a Paradigm DSP-3100; a nice upgrade, with modest size speakers

...shortly thereafter, I got an Oppo Blu-ray and wanted to get into multi-channel music, so the iQ1 became rears, the 2001 became computer speakers, and 3 KEF iQ3 became the fronts (she thought they were a bit big, but not hugely so - actually thought the larger rears were closer to a limit) and the 3100 was replaced with a Rythmik F12.

She's now used to all of it, so the itch for an upgrade is happening again

I had stereo equipment from the late 70's when I married my wife.
After a few years she wanted to replace it with decorator friendly gear so I went out and bought an expensive Bose package and hooked it up.
It was a big gamble, but she is a trained musician so I was counting on the superior sound of the old speakers to win out over decor friendly Bose cubes.
After listening to it for a very short time, she asked if the old speakers were still connected and I said yes.
She wanted to know if I could switch back and forth between the new speakers and the old ones, and I said yes.
After a few A/B's she asked if we could get our money back on the Bose and I said yes.
I never heard another word about the big speakers and when it did come time to retire them, small speakers were not even on her wish list.

this is what I did when I secretly bought a DAC: My wife always listens to Adele since we bought that cd. Somehow, she's already contented playing it on a Samsung htib. One time, I asked her to sit with me while I play Adele on my HT (PS3 --> AVR) . I asked her if she heard any difference, and she said yes (well HT is still better that htib when it comes to audio IMHO).

The next thing I did, is switched to "CD" on my avr (where the dac is connected), change the audio out of PS3 to optical and then played the cd again. I asked her again if she noticed any difference(s) and she said the vocals are more pronounced/"livelier". She then asked me what have I done. "Tada! I bought a dac!"

And if like my wife she says "do whatever...", SHUT UP, say no more until they are delivered. BTW, it seems to be a great match.

My wife is amazing in this regard. She generally just let's me decide "what's best". But we do have a reasonable understanding of what is cost effective and aesthetically pleasing, vs. ugly or gaudy.

But generally if I am interested in something that we have either: A) not budgeted for or B) already have something similar, I'll mention it a few times, test the waters a bit and see how she responds. If she is intrigued, I'll list all of the pros to it, but won't go overboard talking about it. Then generally I'll wait for her to bring it up again later. If she doesn't, I'll casually mention something about it again. If at that point she still seems interested, I'll pursue it more, but if she acts uninterested at that point, I'll typically let it be.

It's easy... just have a pregnant wife on bed rest for the last 3 months of the pregnancy. Take care of your 2 1/2 yr old boy, do all housework, yard work, and grocery shopping while working 40+ hours a week. Then, mention in passing that since we'll be sending more time at the house with our young family you'd like for them to have the same enjoyment that you had as a child watching movies with your family... Next, drop hints of what type of new gear you want for Christmas but then say it's too expensive to get all at once. She may say "well, you've been working hard and you deserve some new stuff".

That may not work for everyone, but it worked for me.

I just replaced my old DLP that died with a bigger and better plasma and I think my wife is starting to enjoy the TV/movie watching experience a lot more, which helps too.

We’re both sort of low maintenance and just go-with-the-flow types and she’s not impressed with expensive things (saves me $$$ in jewelry!). We’d both rather rent a condo on a beach for 2 weeks than spend $ on frivolous things so anytime we have a bigger purchase ($300+ or so) we talk about it first. As most have stated already, marriage is about compromise and understanding. It’s not about who wins or loses.

easy... i got the ones she wanted AND let her pick out the veneer...

if i had had my way, there wouldn't be tower speakers in my theater... but NOOOOO... she wanted big boxes...

My wife might complain about the cost, but she won't complain about my choice of speakers in terms of aesthetics/sound. She knows that home theater is my domain.