A few days ago, my aunt decided that she finally wanted to upgrade her home theater. Recently she bought a nice flat panel LCD monitor, but still uses the cheap shit wal mart HTIB (Home Theater In a Box) that she bought a few years back. The thing sounds fucking terrible. Not just "not up to my standards" as my mother would put it, but "who the fuck buys this shit!?" kind of terrible. I honestly would prefer to just use the TV speaker than listen through this abomination. So finally, she's ready to upgrade. I'm not sure that she is even unhappy with what she's got... I think she's just sick of being told by all of us how bad it is. Like my mother (her sister), I have my doubts as to whether she could even identify the differences between a bunch of clock radio speakers and a B&W 800 series surround system in an A/B test.
So, she wants a new system. Of course she wants it to be cheap, after all, why spend any money on your home theater when you could spend it all on a Blue Ray player that's got like 3 movies in that format. So anyway, I spent a few hours doing a bunch of research to see what was out there. I presented to her 4 speaker options: 2 "cheap" setups, and two better (Under $1k) systems. Before I even showed it to her, I already knew exactly which she'd choose... the cheapest. I was right. I couldn't help but wonder why I bothered listing the other 3 options at all.
So today I just finished doing a little bit of research for subwoofers and a receiver. I suggested 2 subs... I didn't bother listing any of the more expensive stuff I found. I already know which she'll choose, so I probably even wasted my time suggesting 2. With the receiver, I only came up with a couple affordable choices, so that was easier.
So, why am I bitching? I really don't know. I enjoy doing this sort of thing, and I'm always happy to help my aunt. I guess it just frustrates the shit out of me that other people have enough of an interest in this stuff to spend their money on it, but not enough interest to spend their money wisely.
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2 comments:
I wish you would spend as much time on researching stuff for people as you would tearing down wall paper ... I would have the whole house painted by now :)
I take your advice ... most of the time :)
as soon as I can tear wallpaper down while I'm at work, and enjoy it to boot, I promise I'll do it.
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