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 feel sorry for those who feel the need to lie to their wives.  When I was shopping for my 3.6 Maggies, my wife told me that if I wanted them, I could get the 20.7s, an extra 6 or 7K at that time.

We support each other’s hobbies and life remains balanced.  Both are music lovers,  ut when we merged our CDs into a 900 strong collection, there was exactly one duplicate, CSN’s first album/cd.

@shkong78

Why are you leaving the kitchen dirty - it's called paper plates and a microwave or use the grill outdoors!  No mess, no fuss.

My wife gave up on me a long time ago.  She spends what she wants and I do what I do.  After all the guitars and stereo equipment which is stacked in a few room in the house, she just wants to be able to walk into the rooms without falling on things.  BUT since I build my own components and repair components so I make money on them, she is OK with it now.  I still don't tell her the real costs so I am a big liar I guess but when I make the money and take her out to dinner Friday and Saturday nights, plus take care of the home and auto repairs, she has no complaints I guess anymore.  I  bought her the Lexus that she wanted and take her on vacations that she wants to go on so she is very happy.

You have to give to get in this life.

Happy Listening.


You know the old joke about the audiophile’s worst nightmare...that one day his wife sells his equipment for what he told her he paid for it.

I used to tell her the true value of audio gear since we have separate accounts.

She knows that my Lansche 4.1 speaker cost me more than 50k$.


Stax 009S sounds musical even with slightly bright recordings.

But even with those nice things, I could not tell my wife that it costs more than 3K$, since she has never experienced such headphone before.

Somehow she has prejudice that all headphone and earphone shall be less than 500$.

It may be because that I had never used expensive ones before this year.

She even urged me to return 1k$ Empire Zeus earphone.

How come earphone can cost ik$?

That is what she said to me.

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