Wife approval factor?

Imdoc,
oughtta work on that sence of humor buddy! ;)

Slappy, I hear you! I definitely do NOT enjoy being single (fine for a while but gets old fast!)...however, I do enjoy the freedom it affords.

I've been auditioning and making some major upgrades to my system lately and there have been cables all over the place, boxes, etc. You have to hurdle a bunch of off-the-floor cables to get to the kitchen. My listening room doubles as my home studio control room, so in addition to the hifi rig (which is set up in-line with my studio gear so that I can far-field monitor with it from a secondary sweet spot!), I have a nearfield monitor setup, big ol' mixing console, hulking Mac G5 case with big flatpanel, acoustic treatments all over the place, and a rack full of gear with all kinds of flashing lights, knobs, buttons and gizmos. Open cases strewn about mic and patch cables everywhere, studio mics hanging from spider mounts and so on. A client's drum kit has been sitting, all mic'd up, in the bedroom all week, my futon is being used as an absorptive pad, and I've been crashing on the couch!

There's no way in HELL that I'd get away with this with a GF/W around, even with the artsy/hippie types I tend to go for! ;)

I'll be the first to admit that it looks intimidating to new visitors, though my lady friends all typically agree that glowing tubes are aesthetically pleasing and I get lots of compliments on my new speakers--piano gloss Kharma Ceramique 1.0s! We've taken to lovingly calling them the "midget coffins," hehe ;)

Dirtyragamuffin,
Did you see the film "American Splendor"? If not, I definitely recommend it. There's a great scene in it when the main character first invites a girl to his home. She has traveled hundreds of miles to come see him, and he does not clean up first. Check it out. Great movie!

Congratulations on the new Kharma's.

If you have thin skin, it's going to be tough going for you on the 'gon. We're just a bunch of audiophools having fun. Relax...they just let Slappy out. A little air, after being in a straight jacket for awhile can do crazy things to the brain...

In the end I usually get what I want buy just simply buying it. Something about begging for forgiveness versus asking for permission.

Chuck