Amps and Women

thanks, Kelly... and I think that you should show your post to your wife...that should get you some major brownie points, soldier boy :-} I hope that my husband thinks so well of me after 34 years! Nice goin'

In the last couple of years when I audition major equipment purchases I find the right moment to ask my wife to take some time and listen. She normally has a different impression then I do, and sometimes helps me to undo a predilection towards certain (brands of) equipment. She is particularly sensitive to equipment that has a forced/bright/sterile upper midrange and treble quality, and where the bass is out of proportion. Recently I have been auditioning 2 channel analog preamps (I currently use a surround pre/pro as a digital preamp). She has consistently preferred all of the tube line stages to any of the SS units I have tried, such as ML's 380s.

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment,-- What it sounds like to me, would be more important.Having read Stereophile for years,the women hearing thing is no new news.Yes,if the woman can point to something I was missing out on,but then could hear,after it was brought to my attention---Can I rent somebody's wife?? Yes,you can come along,my intentions are honorable.

I have been blessed with a girlfriend who is "tolerant" of my audio & electronics based "cluster....". While she does enjoy having all of the "goodies" that we have to take advantage of, she doth think that i carry on just a bit much. Nonetheless, she is willing to listen to systems when i've made changes and share her findings with me. Since she is not into "audio" and has no sense of brand or model recognition, i'm basically getting the "straight dope" based on what she hears. So as not to bias her opinions or what she should listen for, i simply play music and let her tell me what she notices most. Most of the time, things are pretty obvious and she wants to speak out quickly, so i've had to remind her to relax for a bit and take in a deeper breath of the systems performance and traits. I do this AFTER i have formed my own opinions so that we can then compare notes. While she may not share the "audiophile vocabulary" of most of us here, her descriptions are typically spot on and coincide with my observations. I have also found that my Brother shares most of same sonic likes / dislikes that we do, so having three different opinions come up with the same findings can be pretty re-assuring that i'm on the right track. Now my Father on the other hand........ Sean >

God Bless women that will take some time to appease their significant other!