I lied to my wife about the price of Stax 009S headphone


My wife is the youngest of my mom in law who is 88 years old.

Recently my wife is staying with her mom to take care  expecting her mom can live just one more year or so.

Thus I am having happy life playing music loud even during midnight.

My house is seated on 2 acre lot so that my neighbors does not get bothered unless windows open wide.


My wife dropped at home yesterday ( She drop once a week to clean the messy kitchen while she is away.  She is an angel Ha ha).

She happened to see my new headphone of Stax 009S headphone and asked its price.

I could tell her the real value ( new price 4,500$ and I got 4 months used one for 3,200$).

I did not mean to deceive her but answered it costs me 1,500$ by chance.


Then she had listened to K-Pop using both  Stax 009S headphone driven by Carbon amplifier and Massdrop  Empire Zeus IEM( I told her the real value as 1,000$ No lie here Hehe).

The source was  Cocktail Audio X30 music server feeding  Chord Dave and Mscaler ( I did not tell her how much Chord Dave and Mscaler cost, if she find out, I may have to buy her diamond necklace)

On first few songs, she prefer  Empire Zeus IEM  to  Stax 009S headphone on lively sound of the former.

But after listening few more songs, she expressed that  Stax 009S headphone sounds more natural than  Empire Zeus IEM .


Whew if I had told her that I had spent 3200$ on headphone, I may have to go out to buy her something like expensive bag or clothing.

Reality is I had also spent additional 3300$ on  KGSSHV Carbon headphone amplifier.

How many of your audiophile had lied to your wife or girlfriend about the cost of audio components?

I guess 98% from my 41 years of audio history.


128x128shkong78
I think OP is looking for justification to lie to his wife and take advantage of her cleaning the kitchen.  Sorry, but I think you can do better.  Clean up after yourself, and tell your wife the truth.  Exaggerate with your buddies if you feel you must, but your spouse should be inside the "cone of truthfulness".  

I speak from experience.  My wife lied to me often, usually about trivial things, but a few times over truly important life issues.  Funny thing about it (if you can say funny) is that she thought I didn't know.  I'm not stupid.  I did know, almost always.  And when I told her I knew, instead of admitting it, she raised the bar.  The more serious the lies became, the bigger the wall grew between us.  We are divorced now, and our son suffers the consequences.  

Don't even start down this path.  It wasn't worth it for any of us, and it won't be worth it for you.  Obviously you are in here asking because you know it's wrong.  There is only one thing in life that we truly own.  Money, cars, home, job, and everything else can be taken from us.  But, our integrity is one thing we can choose to either keep or toss away.  Don't sacrifice your integrity with the person who's closest to you.
Of course I lie to my wife. It’s what our “audio relationship” is based on!

I kept the information from my wife on my modest Cary SET an integrated tube amp ~$5K.  She thinks it looks real cool and wants me to buy one for the living room and two more for the other house.  She didn't ask the cost.  Then, she makes the big bucks.  
@ davidgwillett

It is better to keep the price of audio gear from your wife rather than lying.

My wife does not ask the price of gear often.

But this time she was curious about the price of headphone after she got surprised at my purchase of 1k$ earphone.

I reduced the price of headphone afraid that she may get heart attack upon hearing the real price of it.

She has prejudice that any headphone or earphone over 500$ is a rip off.
@ teo_audio

I am using your nice interconnect as one component of triple combination (not just double like Doug Schroeder).

On 2005, I could reach the speed of 135mile(220km/hr) at Autobahn near Frankfurt, Germany.

Unless they raise the speed limit to 100 mile/h in US, I do not have any intention to buy any sports car here.

I do not want to play top audio system under 80db all the time.

It is same as nice sports car to drive under 75 mile/h.