What have you done to get your system?

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This thread is dedicated to those crazy people that do crazy things just to get the Audiophile system they have always wanted. I'll go first with mine:

A little background, I am 23 and newly married about 10 months ago. We just moved into a house that we purchased (so already we are low on cash) and I am currently finishing the basement for a sufficient theatre room!

2 female friends of my wife are students here in Calgary, they both are coming from Penticton BC. They couldn't find anywhere to live that was affordable. So my wife comes to me and says "would you consider housing these girls for the school year?" To top it all off, i don't want to give my "my" basement for these girls, so they are going to be staying upstairs in 2 bedrooms right beside ours...

Of course, me being newly married likes my privacy and likes to be as errr..."loud"...in the house as I want. I was very hesitant. Then she pulls out the master line!

"You can use all the rent money to cover all the costs for the audio and video of the theatre"...

So how could I say no to $1000/month that all goes to the theatre? I couldn't! I am hoping that my privacy still remains semi-intact...But i am sure I could put a lock on the theatre room and spend some time with my wife and be as "loud" as I please!

To sum it up, i gave up major privacy being newly weds for $1000/month to goto my system. What have you done?

-Robb.

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To sum it up, i gave up major privacy being newly weds for $1000/month to goto my system. What have you done?

-Robb.

Groveled, whimpered, cried, begged, pleaded, and been the luckiest guy on the face of the planet to know some extremely kind, gracious, generous people.

i would house them for free !!!! HT can always wait !!

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i would house them for free !!!! HT can always wait !!

Not exactly what i have in mind...

For the main system, I just said "I'm going to buy 5 grand worth of home theater gear" and my wife said "just make sure everything matches the decor." Almost scarily easy. Of course I had just bought her a car for Christmas. For the M3tis in my office I had a drink or 6 and bought them on eBay. Used. For $20US more than a new pair of FO speaks would have cost delivered. Now I need another drink.

When my wife complained that my Paradigm Monitor 9 speakers "took up too much space" I decided that if I was going to have to downgrade to bookshelf speakers then, by golly, I'd buy a good subwoofer at the same time -- damn the consequences!

So I ordered a pair of M22s, a VP100, and an SVS PB12-ISD. Lucky for me, the m22 speakers I purchased were actually an upgrade from the Monitor 9 speakers in terms of accuracy, imaging, and almost everything else that matters sonically. I was happy on that count. My wife was happy because they didn't take up any floor space at all. I have them on a piece of furniture.

The biggest surprise for me was the subwoofer. It basically takes up just as much space as the two Monitor 9 speakers, but since it sits in a corner as is relatively invisible, she doesn't mind it one bit.

She won and I won. yay.

Hmmm, I should have your problems...

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Hmmm, I should have your problems...

Yeah, really.

I had the "opposite" situation. Instead of getting two gals who "pay-to-stay," just about the time I was getting our system up and running, our youngest daughter gave us an "empty-nesters' house warming gift" of four children to raise right after retirement!! So instead of an extra $1000 coming in, we get an additional $1000 a month "going out"! To make matters worse, we had to buy a larger house which just happened to have much poorer acoustics than what was in the smaller one, plus we had to start all over again with larger receiver, speakers and TV set! Arrrrrrgh!!

There is a good side though. I really dig the kids, and we all kinda band together against Grandma and get to pick a good action movie instead of a chick-flick now and again!

I retired, and got a portion of the system paid for by my friends at work.......

Well, there may have been other reasons for my retirement but thats my story and I'm sticking to it.

I pushed around carts in a parking lot for a month

I researched and researched and then did some listening and then some more research and then convinced the wife that I have always wanted a really nice pair of speakers and that I would keep them forever and that I don't spend money on other toys so . . . .

I bought a pair of M22's. . .then convinced her that I needed to upgrade to M60's. . .then convinced her that I needed surround sound. . . etc etc and poof. A complete Axiom home theater system with a wonderful Hsu sub at its side.

By the way, she hates the sub because it is ugly but does appreciate the tension that it adds to movies. And she knows that I would grab it right after the kid in case of a fire!

Oh yeah. . . and I worked really hard for all the $ to buy these wonderful speakers.