Priorities, who makes the rules anyway?


I'm putting this on the table for two reasons, 1) I am tired of 'which amp for my speakers' threads, and 2) I am right.

Most everyone I know thinks I am a crazy-man. They refer to me as the one who has taken home entertainment to the "extreme." My question is, where'd they get that idea? Generally speaking: the average upper-middle-class yupster walks into a car dealer and plops down $???$ without thinking twice. Next they slice the price into monthly payments, add interest and insure it, all for the low, low, price of what...say, $35k (for arguments sake). Now throw another in for the wife. Where are we now, $70k in cars? The point. This sort of average behavior is thought of as completely reasonable and rational in most circumstances.

On the other hand, a guy like me (or we) who throw(s) down anything approaching (or even half) the total amount of the car, much less both cars, on home entertainment stuff, is a nutcase (or bunch of them if all of you are still on board) with out of whack priorities. What is with this? I enjoy my HT system way more than I enjoy my car. I spend more time at home with my HT system, or at least try to. All else equal I would rather drive a junker pick-up and come home to a plasma flatscreen, than any other, another way around. For me, this is true, even if it's just to watch the news. (The real point, as you may have guessed--I am talking myself into spending more). I NEED that flatscreen. I do.

When are we going to start thinking of home entertainment the same as we do cars? As it is for most, high dollar home entertainment is still thought of as a guilty pleasure.
j_thunders
Kitch29 makes a good point, but I never needed a car for that purpose, Viva New York City!
A greater man than me said it all. You just have to believe that you are entitled to be 'you' regardless of what others think.

Another way of saying it: "Your opinion of me is none of my business."
I had a lot of fun in my house last fall when my daughter, a budding cellist, decided that she needed a better cello. She had been using the basic "student" cello she had began with, and was a few years into playing and had really taken to it, practicing hours a day with no pushing from her parents, so I had no problem understanding that she desired something "better".

However, after a few years of crazy looks and exasperated comments about the upgrades I've done to my home system (probably one major upgrade a year), I didn't miss the opportunity to turn the questions around. "Why do you need a new one when you've already got one the works". "What makes a different one better - does it have more strings or something?" "Do you realize we could spend that money on something I want instead?"

After extracting a modest amount of pain with that type of question, I got a little more serious and asked her to explain to me (seriously) what she was hoping to achieve with this "upgrade". She started by telling me that "I just wouldn't understand". I thought this was interesting because when I upgrade the audio system, I'd LOVE it if somebody expressed and interest in what I was trying to accomplish and wanted to hear it for themselves. I insisted that I could understand, at least somewhat, and then my wife got involved in trying to answer the question, which made it a really good exercise. I haven't done a major upgrade since then, so I don't know if it will have a lasting effect, but it was fun to turn the game around.

I have also tried, over time and somewhat unsuccessfully, to point out that if you add up everything I've ever spent on A/V gear, it's less than the kitchen remodel my wife wants to do, probably not much more than the bathroom remodel we've already done, etc. I sometimes think it's another version of the old deal of the differences between how men and women keep "score" - men have different amounts of points earned depending on the quality of the act, while women tend to count things as one point each. I think I could convince my wife to let me spend $50K all at once on a system without a lot more difficulty than convincing her to let me spend $5K five times. I don't think she understands that I enjoy it a lot more spending money over the course of time and experimenting.

Great topic! - Kirk

Re: ....normal....J_thunders you overestimate your estimation of our opinion of thyself, if you accept that I speak for "Our".