The Best Compliment You've Gotten On Your Rig?


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My brother-in-law entered my home as jazz was playing on my system. After about three songs, the announcer came on and started to speak..and my brother-in-law looked at me with amazement.."that was the radio??!!

He could not believe he was listening to a radio station. It was my killer Sansui TU-X1 tuner doing its thing. Best compliment I could ever receive. My bro-in-law is not an audiophile.
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128x128mitch4t
This is a GREAT thread. Thank you OP. 

I get mixed responses. 

One funny one was a guy who said, "Does this sound better than my Sonos?"  Knowing him, I knew he was be sarcastic. 

My wife's parents really admired how the kick drum on Neil Young's "Out on the Weekend" sounded so realistic and palpable.  I'll never forget that day. 

My wife's cousin, a young (upper 20s) music lover spent 3+ hours solo in my listening room.  I'd check in at times. I let him do his thing and play his music, streaming to my tube DAC.  He made numerous comments. one I remember was, "This sounds so different than what I'm used to.  I'm totally sucked in."  Well, he's a music lover so it makes sense. 

One of our friends (the wife of the couple) strayed into my room during a party.  Her husband spent $50k+ on a whole house custom install.  It sounds pretty good to me and it's super slick.  She immediately began streaming her favorites from all over the Pop/Rock musical map.  Folks started dropping in the room with their drinks.  The party just gravitated to the music room.  That, not an outward oral compliment, was a compliment of behavior. 

My father came to visit during the polar vortex.  He would escape every night to the music room, listen and surf.  He rarely listens to tunes anymore.  He asked for all sorts of artists from Nat King Cole to Sam Cooke to the Doobie Brothers and many more.  He kept saying, "I can really hear the instruments" or "Nat King Cole's voice sounds just like it should...God was he a talent." 

Many folks come up to the music room and laugh at the whole thing or make jokes like, "Do you have a special insurance rider for all this stuff?"  

I agree with folks here who say it's a solo endeavor.  I do, however, try to get people to bite and get the bug because high fidelity music is my religion. 
I had the musicians over to our house after a string-quartet concert, some pieces also with piano and/or winds. They gravitated to the audio room, and we were up until 2:00 a.m. listening to music.

“Even when it’s off, it looks like a science experiment!”

I treasure this compliment to this day.


(Tubed DAC, preamp and amp - 21  tubes in all)


I don’t really care about the compliments, I get those every time somebody listens to my rig, but when somebody calls and asks for my help to put together a system because I inspired them that really makes me happy.

I had a room at the RMAF using my own personal system and got a few remarks.

“Though I've heard the Wilson-Benesch Curve floorstanders many times before, I found that they sounded spectacularly good as driven by Kara Chaffee's amazing deHavilland tube electronics . Nothing I heard at RMAF, save perhaps for the far more expensive Vandersteen/ARC system, could touch this rig for sheer midrange purity, detail, three-dimensionality ." Chris Martens TAS on the 2009 show.