Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Upgrade Justification to the Spouse?

No, I'm not planning on upgrading my Axioms. I think that they are great as is, but what about other equipment. How do you convince your spouse that an upgrade would be nice, even when everything today is working just fine?

This is one of the things that has really held me out of the Hi-Def disc arena for so long. I have a nice Pioneer Elite receiver that does everything I want and more, but doesn't have HDMI inputs or HD audio decoders, but it DOES have analog audio inputs. I was waiting for HiDef disc players with analog audio to come down in price, but when I could pick up an HD-DVD player (no analog audio) for $90, I jumped on it. Now Blu-Ray is sitting around $300 for the lowest priced player, and the "best one" is still the PS3 according to a lot of people, so no analog audio output option, or at least no where near the price point I'd like it to be.

So, how do you go about telling someone, that really doesn't care to understand HDMI and analog audio that a new receiver would be THAT much better? She thinks things are great now (and they are), so that is the hard sell.

The other one is that I'd love to jump up to a 1080p projector. These babies now have such a better contrast ratio and other specs over my 720p Sanyo Z3 that I think it would be awesome, however again, my wife is telling me that we don't watch enough movies or TV to justify upgrading, and I hear comments like, why isn't THIS good enough? When will it stop? Etc...

I've tried to tell her that since we got the projector 4 years ago, even if we averaged only 1 movie a week and no TV (we watch a little TV on it, but not much. More than 6 months ago, but not huge numbers of hours), we would be at about 208 movies. Take the cost of the projector, about $1800 back then, and divide the 208 movies, and you are at $8.65 per movie in the cost of the projector.

The math seems to make sense to me, but then she would say, well, that doesn't cover the cost of the speakers, screen, receiver, etc. True, but I could keep those (except maybe the receiver ;)) for years to come....

It isn't like I have money to throw around, and I do have other things I've been wanting to buy for a long time (a shed and home theater seating are tops on my list) but I like to plan and budget out a little.

So how do you guys/gals do it?

I dunno. But Happy Birthday!

Exactly! You don't need to justify anything on your birthday!! Hide the birthday cake mix to distract her for a few moments and go buy what you need.

Have a great day!!

If you figure it out Nick, let me know the secret. happy b'day by the way!!!!1

Do what I do ... "Look woman I'll buy whatever I feel like buying regardless of what your thoughts are and don't ask me again about the price, now go get my dinner ready dammit."

Yea, that's what I do.



Happy Birthday Nick!

Great, this has turned into a birthday / sarcasm thread...

I can always count on you guys to get things off topic, can't I?



Thanks for the birthday wishes by the way! - And yes, I do feel old!

Old, ha ha, just wait until your my age.

I'd tell you what I did, but I'm divorced so maybe it wasn't such a good stratagy. I guess I'll stick to happy birthday!

Another Happy Birthday wish Nick, I know with my wife most the time I have to convince her that whatever I'm buying will somehow save us money in the long run. Kinda hard to do with electronics.
There's always the, it would sure be romantic to have a nice little system in the bedroom, that way at least you're utilizing the old equipment.

A birthday is an excellent justification for an upgrade!
Upgrade your age and get a free HD receiver!

I'm not sure that getting older is an "upgrade"....

As you get older you grab at what you can.

Happy birthday!! I have no problems upgrading my home theater, but then again I haven't upgraded my "single" relationship status . Ultimately I think that is words of wisdom to our fellow axiomites. But to answer your question about justification to your spouse... I don't have a sweet clue LOL . All the best in your venture though. I'll be asking the same question many, many, many years down the road, so I'd like to hear how you make out and what worked so I can write it down and put it in my sock drawer .

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

So break it.

If the projector is ceiling mounted, loosen a few screws and accidentally leave your receiver and disc player right below it.

You'll be upgrading in no time!

"No honey, I have no idea how that happened, but I'll be out for a couple of hours. Going shopping!"

Happy birthday!

Happy Birthday, best of luck on the upgrades.

Happy Birthday, Nick.

None of the equipment logic arguments work.

The only thing that matters is that it will make you happy. If she is in a position to want to spend $x on your happiness, you're set. If not, you have to change the emotional landscape.

But, yeah, what Rick said works too.

When I was married things would go this way......

My wife and I would give ourselves "an allowance" every two weeks. This was for purely discretionary spending. You could do whatever you wanted with it although we did agree to let the other know if we were spending over $500. Obviously a weeks allowance wouldn't get a major upgrade so you'd just save it up until you reached your goal.

Prevented a lot of stress.

BTW Happy Birthday.

My wife and I do the same thing with the allowances. Saves a lot of stress.

Possibly a little late for that now, though. Happy birthday!

How about the good old reliable "the dog did it" ? I know it's a typical childhood lament but we are grown-up men looking for any way out!

I justify upgrades as being part of the hobby of having a home theater. I have a brother-in-law that races cars and owns a jet ski as well as a few other toys. I just explain to the wife that my hobby is no different than his hobby when she starts asking why I need this new piece of equipment when the old one still works fine. It has worked for me just fine. This year I upgraded to a plasma tv and replaced my five-year-old budget Onkyo with the Onkyo 805 so that I can enjoy the new audio formats. I did have to promise that I am done with big upgrades for a few years though, which is probably a good idea. Although, our wedding anniversary and Christmas are in the same month, so I can do smaller upgrades then. I am trying to decide if I want the new Oppo dvd player ( the 983) or some rear surrounds on the Christmas/anniversary list this year.

- Nick

Maybe I have too many hobbies.....

The OPPO DV-980 has 7.1 audio but the OPPO DV-981 doesn't. I'm assuming it doesn't matter which model I purchase because my Denon AVR 3808 will decode the audio anyway, is this correct? Or is there a benefit to the OPPO DV-980 with 7.1 audio?

Hope I'm not hijacking this thread.

Let me help you wheelz....

the one thing I have to caution you on is HDCP. Many AVRs (I have Pioneer 82TSX, Marantz 8001, and Denon 3808) have handshaking issues. So you'll see video or audio drop out while it's syncing or you may have to turn the whole system on and off for it to resync. This is the most common for cable settop boxes (you mention you don't watch much tv so you may have less of an issue).

If you can wait, I would probably sit out until next year for things to settle down even more. For me, the better soundtrack/effects of the movie make it worthwhile. More so than the video portion. Keep in mind that most movies do not look like HD broadcast. It's more grainy by design or doesn't have the "looks like a kodak picture moving" clarity of sports HD broadcast. It's certainly better quality than DVD or SD broadcast, but depending on the movie, you may or may not get the Wow! affect.

Hey, Happy Birthday, Nick!!

Happy Birthday!

Every spouse has different requirements. One method that may work for you is to keep talking about upgrading. Spend a lot of time online researching exactly what you're going to buy. Eventually, she may TELL you to just buy the damn things.

Don't know anything about "upgrades", Nick, but Happy Birthday!

In the Marine Corps I was always taught that it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission when making a decision. But then like fredk I’m also divorced. On the flip side…is there something expensive you can buy her and then use the guilt to leverage the new equipment you want. Will cost more and may take longer but has good odds.

Dean

I think that allowance thing is a great idea, though it would have done nothing to help my marriage.

Its interesting to read threads like this. It seems there are almost as many ways to deal with this issue as there are marriages.

Nick - I think that the size of the upgrade is proportional to the amount of begging required. I am about a year away from getting a new tube amp.

I'm really likeing the allowance idea, however, then my problem becomes that again I have a lot of hobbies, none of which are cheap, and her hobbies aren't nearly as costly... It would seem odd that I got a *much* larger allowance than she did... Maybe that would make be divorced like Fred...

Oh, but wait.... I could try to justify it as being for the whole FAMILY, not just me!

Yeah, yeah.... That's the ticket!

I've also found that timing is important when trying to discuss doing the upgrade or new purchase. In fact, finding the right time to discuss it is almost as important as the argument for why you need the new item. Make sure that your wife is in a good mood so that you are most likely to get a positive response. This could be after an evening of taking her out to her favorite restaurant and movie of her choice. When trying to convince my wife that I needed to upgrade my Bose Acoustimass speakers to Axioms I had to wait about two months waiting for the right time to bring it up. I spent quite a bit of time thinking of exactly how I was going to convince her why the upgrade is needed when the old speakers work just fine (if anyone has heard these Bose speakers they will know that the speakers do not work just fine).

- Nick

The way one should approach this is via incremental bitching. Start by pulling out everything and re-wiring muttering to yourself about "this no good system....." But don't make it obvious. You're just in the seeding stage. Do a few more "re-wiring, re-amping, re-SPL'ing, re-something'ing" with little more emphasis on "geesh, if only I had XYZ system" But again, subtlety is what you're after.

Before you know it, she will take pity and allow you to upgrade

As my friend once said as he was eye'ing a new laptop (with is wife next to him)..."man, if I had that, I'd get some sh!t done! yeah, I'd get some sh!t done!"

It is better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

BAH - ultimatums man ultimatums - the only way to go - ask my 3 ex wives......

After many years of dealing with this issue, I believe I have found the answer or at least the ability to soften the blow when the time comes to upgrade.

Whether it be Christmas, birthdays, Father's day etc. when asked what you want, indicate you really don't need anything but cash in a card would suffice, (no gift certificates). I know some think there is not a lot of imagination to this but if you make it clear why, then it shouldn't be a problem. This way when you go to make the purchase, you can say this is what you did with the money and it's what you really wanted anyway.

Yeah, I've done good ol' money saving for birthdays, Christmases, fathers' day, etc. In fact, that is how I got my nice drum set was consuming a few years of present-receiving holidays...

This is also how my wife and I handle things. Any overtime pay we have between each other also get devided in half. It helps boost the allowace when you need to make a bigger purchase.

Another advocate of that plan here - though it works in reverse as well... For my wife's birthday this year, I wanted to get her something nice and was considering a nice set of diamond earrings, something she's wanted for a long time. However, when I really started thinking about going out and spending this kind of coin on something that she couldn't pick out before we were committed, I decided I'd much rather give her the money and let her decide what she wanted...

On the other hand, I didn't want to give her purely cash (much too Soprano-style to me), I bought her something small that was more of a personal gift, and then gave her a card and a wad of cash to go blow on anything she wanted...

Because it's cash and "untraceable," (i.e. no credit card statement that I read and say "What'd you spend $500 on at the GAP?") for her, she enjoys it a lot more... worked for me, and my birthday is coming up soon... I intend to ask for the same type of gift in return.

Your mileage may vary, good luck.

Dude, just explain the fact that you need HDMI switching on your receiver in order to run a blu ray into it. Explain the differential cost of the new one and what you will get for selling your current one.

Honestly I would prep it and wait 2 more months until the pre xmas sales start to happen.

I personally have done enough spending on home improvements, family holidays and diamond earrings, leather coat for my wife that when a couple speakers roll in she doesnt care.

Then again, my wife likes the HT gear, she just doesnt care to know the technology behind it. If she can watch "The Sound of Music" or any other current releases in 5.1 on the 61" set ....its all good.

Your a lucky man! My wife wouldn't bat an eyelash if we downgraded from the 60" with 5.1 to a 21" with just the tv speakers. She just doesn't care. I'm glad I had the TV before I had her or I would have a 21" TV * shudders just thinking about it *