Same here most recently the bloke who came round to measure up for a new door. And the cable TV man, who pointed at the speakers on the TV system and said 'Hey I bet these can really kick it out!'
One time I sold some speakers to the bloke who came to plaster the hallway. He wanted to revisit the Van Halen albums from his youth.
I’ve had a few contractors and service people sit down to listen to my system - somewhere interested in gear but nothing like audiophiles, but occasionally they have been audiophiles themselves, which has been a fun conversation.
I remember one very non-audiophile sitting to listen to the system I had at the time (Hales Transcendence stand mounted speakers with a little Eico HF81 old tube amp). It was our interior decorator. He sat down and I played
a very nice track from Everything But The Girl
and to my surprise, when it was finished he had tears flowing from his eyes. He said the music and the sound was so beautiful and enveloping. He got it. (even though he certainly was not suddenly a converted audiophile).
On the other hand, your mention of the cable guy coming over reminds me of a cringe inducing experience with a cable guy at my place.
I had just bought my
Joseph Audio Perspective2 speakers - had just received them and set them up in my listening room the day before. What are the reasons I spent more on the speakers is because I admired the aesthetics so much in terms of the high-quality fit and finish. Though that comes at the price that the black areas (front baffle, top of speaker and back of speaker) can be easy to scratch.
But the day after I received the speakers, a cable guy came in to do some work, including in that room. I’d only left him in that room for maybe 15 or 20 minutes and when I popped back in I’d found that he left his tools on top of the speakers! Belt, gloves, screwdrivers, pliers….
Eeeeeeeeek!!!’
I asked him to please take the gear off the speakers (actually I took them off gently and thank goodness no scratches). He was a bit baffled as to why anybody would care about placing anything on a loudspeaker.
Which is just one example of many which reminded me that for many people (and this actually tended to be people closer to my age), the idea of a truly expensive “ be careful with it” loudspeaker was just not a thing they were familiar with.
Loudspeakers where to be generally set up in a corner somewhere, with some sort of cheap wood finish, and you could place anything you wanted on top… a plant vase, ashtray, your can of beer, whatever.
Those are the folks who when they come into my listening room well often end up standing beside a speaker, and then leaning on it while speaking. Of course my eyes go right to whether they are wearing a ring or not (hence scratching the finish) and I have to figure out how to ask them not to lean on the speaker without seeming like an asshole.
I have a good friend who is a sort of local “fix it guy” and whenever he comes over, I have to be careful because the whole expensive audio gear thing just does not click with him.
He always wants to lean on the nearest speaker or take out a tool and just wildly inches from the speaker with the tool, etc.
Totally different mindset.
Understandable since I would be clueless about many other hobbies.
Of course, everything has gone up in price since 2018 when I first built the room. Hopefully the Trinnov comes next week so I can try out Atmos finally.
