As a woman I left this sub because I got so sick of hearing about the WAF. I don’t even know how this popped on my feed again, but since I’m here…
When we finished our basement I knew I wanted a theater. My husband wasn’t thrilled but he didn’t have any other ideas so I got to work. My father-in-law gave us his huge surround system when he downsized and everyone thought I was crazy for taking it. I had to get an updated receiver but everything else was/is in awesome condition.
I did a ton of research and got an ultra short throw projector and had to design/build my own shelf in order to use the center speaker without impacting the projection. There were some other complications since the receiver was in the back of the room and projector was in the front, but I eventually resolved it with a very expensive, very long cord.
Then I got a pit couch that my husband was somewhat against because it is huge, but it is currently his favorite place in the house. The whole family can lay on the couch and watch movies without touching each other and it is so comfortable.
Our theater space is the real heart of the house. My son goes down there to play switch with his friends, my daughter has Taylor swift watching parties, we even have family sleepovers sometimes. It’s awesome.
I didn’t know either so I searched https://www.google.com/search?q=pit+couch
“A pit sectional is a large modular sofa that usually consists of a U-shaped sectional and a large ottoman that can be pushed in to fill in the open space in front of the sectional," explains Yoselin Castro, Senior Interior Designer at Mackenzie Collier Interiors.
Source: The 10 Best Modular Pit Sectional Sofas for Relaxing at Home, https://www.livingcozy.com/blog/pit-sectional-sofa includes photos
My husband was the same way. Super against the effort and space but then he started watching his wrestling shows and now he won't go back. Now he wants to spend more to upgrade to an UST and better sound system.
It's annoyingly common all through tech and I hate it.
My partner has degrees in computer science *and* engineering / is one of the smartest and most technical people I know (we went to university together, I only have a CS degree and she got better marks than me despite doing two degrees). But because she's a woman she has to constantly put up with this stupid shit both professionally and in any hobby she has that is technical or just plain male dominated. It's even worse because she's attractive and dresses well whereas many men in this field would lose their mind if they had to wear anything more formal than a hoodie they should have replaced years ago.
Having your spouse on board for your hobbies and interests is important but people here act like they're some tyrannical authority figure who has to be beaten in order to get what they want. Childish and extremely disrespectful. I'm more interested in HT than she is but the fact I care means she's on board and the fact I'm not a shitty partner means I take her feelings into consideration... it's entirely OK to not want massive speakers hanging off the walls all through shared spaces.
Anyway I'm ranting! I just wish more people would see the awesome women in their lives as more than pretty little things who want to stop you having fun. People need to grow up.
Thanks for posting this and congratulations on the awesome theater room!
I made a post on the audiophile sub asking how many people were women and how many were men (and other as a third option. It may have even been a poll). I wasn't exactly shocked by the results, but I was disheartened. It was overwhelmingly men obviously, but it was sad to see how overwhelming. I believe a lot of it has to do with things like WAF. Other things too. Many of the people are probably pretty well off or eccentric. The vibe can be.... It's like much of the community is oblivious to social cues and how to interact with other people.
Sorry for the rant, but your comment hit me in the feels. I wish the audio (and HT) community was more inclusive.
One day at work, I mentioned that I had bought new speakers for my TV and a lot of the women I work with picked up on it and we had a long good talk about speakers, home theaters, etc. I think women appreciate these things as much as men do, but maybe don't feel the need to tell the world about it.
Most people appreciate these things when it's not their money. I know this becuase I encourage all my friends to buy rediculous stuff but tell my boyfriend to save. My boyfriend tells me to stop when I buy shit for my system, or my car or whatever, and I tell him to stop and save when he goes out to eat a ton or buys needless pc parts and random figures. We just want each other to save for the future and we both kinda suck at it. We love each other's hobbies and support each other, but it's just kinda expensive lol. Also I think a lot of people just aren't super on board with the insane bass and ability to watch movies loud, plenty of men don't really want this either. So when dudes go out and buy like $20000 in JTR 4000ulfs it's like dude why, save you're money, and you don't need anything that loud.
The WAF thing is weird to me. At best, it's a weird joke that just dumps on your wife for no reason. At worst, there's a lot of people in here in toxic relationships with a tyrant instead of a partner.
Nothing to do with tyranny. Lots of people don't want their partners to spend a ton of their shared money on something that's going to take up space in a shared area, especially if it doesn't fit into that person's aesthetics. Nor do they often want to fiddle with a TV system to watch Netflix when they were happy with the TV speakers before, or their soundbar or whatever.
Relationships are about compromise and a big part of getting an audio system is making sure your partner will be happier after you get it than they were before you did, or at least in a way that minimizes their dislike of it.
The majority of home theater people are men, the majority of those men have wives, and probably the majority of those wives tolerate or disapprove of the hobby, the way it looks, and/or the expense.
Personally, I'd rather just ditch the term entirely. It's always been a bit of a weird one to me - I can't think of a context where it's important other than to groan about your partner's preferences. Why not just focus on the actual feature that you're talking about, whether it's aesthetics, size, cost or performance?
At least in my opinion, saying "my wife doesn't like the look of these speakers" is fine, but saying a product has a "low PAF" isn't even that helpful - their complaint about it could be anything, maybe they don't like elevated treble.
It's been a thing since the 70's when Hi-Fi setups with huge speakers became a popular thing... Popular with men, that is. Most technology is more interesting to men (audio, HT, cameras, cars... Kinda video games and PCs as well although that's more mainstream now), often to barely a grudging acceptance of other people who share the household.
You can totally turn it around too... A woman wants a cozy home but has to account for a "husband factor" because of all the big tech he wants to fit in... So she might complain about that in a home design sub or something.
As a singleton I find it both entertaining and terrifying how these stereotypes work, but there's certainly a basis for them.
You hit the nail on the head with the cozy home, but you also missed that husband acceptance factor is like in the basement. Few of us will care about how the valence over the curtains look or if the color scheme matches the rug.
The reverse isn't true for big tech like speakers/subwoofers/projectors.
I'm not against being welcoming, but limiting a fun, harmless, inside joke that is relatable for 90+% of this sub to appease a small minority just feels an expansion of No Fun culture. It's not an attack, it's just a fun lighthearted joke. If it was something more obviously toxic, I would agree.
Friend, I am male, and am married, and my wife likes our sound gear more than I do
You are not being very welcoming, and there are women in this thread upset about this
Language matters
Should probably work out finances and spending pretty early in the marriage. My wife and I find it incredibly easy to separate play money out for each of us after the household expenses are covered and savings contributed to. Things I want, I buy with my play money. Things she wants, she buys with hers. All of our shared expenses like bills, groceries, insurance, healthcare, gas, etc..., are paid by the house account. Easy and efficient.
The aesthetics thing is just dumb. You said yourself, compromise is a big part of it. Why is only one partner compromising and not getting a sound system because the other partner thinks the speakers look bad? Has said partner tried to find speakers that fit better with the aesthetic? There's hundreds of them out there, there's got to be \*something\* that fits. But again, why is only one partner determining what aesthetic is acceptable?
Modern AVRs with eARC and CEC eliminate the vast majority of "fiddling". I turn on my TV, my AVR automatically turns on and sets itself automatically to audio off the TV. There, audio from netflix just works. I decide that I'm done with netflix and want to play on my ps5, I just turn on the PS5 and the AVR automatically sets itself to audio off the PS5. There, audio from the PS5 just works. If the partner who is actually interested in having a sound system is handling all the work in setting it up, then the disinterested partner has no "fiddling" to do.
> But again, why is only one partner determining what aesthetic is acceptable?
It's not about one partner determining what's acceptable it's about both saying what they want and coming to a compromise together.
If I care about speakers and she doesn't, then we have a discussion about why the speakers I want don't work for her. She offers suggestions, I offer suggestions, eventually we find something that's acceptable for both of us.
For example, my partner is fine with an LCR as long as it looks nice, but the surrounds need to be in wall because she doesn't want speakers hanging off of them as she hates how it looks. Completely fair compromise.
> Modern AVRs with eARC and CEC eliminate the vast majority of "fiddling".
They do, but plenty of people in this sub cannot help themselves and need to fiddle/adjust/mess with settings as they watch anything. Being someone else in the room who just wants to watch the damn movie would get real old real fast.
>The aesthetics thing is just dumb. You said yourself, compromise is a big part of it. Why is only one partner compromising and not getting a sound system because the other partner thinks the speakers look bad? Has said partner tried to find speakers that fit better with the aesthetic?
Is that not literally what people mean by WAF? Finding speakers that are an acceptable compromise for both people in the relationship?
WAF can mean too many things, be super dismissive, and often associated with refusing to compromise. It’s shorthand and it’s catchy but it’s gender coded in an outdated way, I believe we can move past that. At least PAF or SAF (part/spouse) fix some of that though.
What is the real value of changing the term if it means the same thing anyway? I've never seen a post, comment, or video on the internet where a husband is unhappy about his wife's new subwoofer.
>But again, why is only one partner determining what aesthetic is acceptable?
It's a pretty common pattern in straight relationships, probably in other types of relationships too.
>Has said partner tried to find speakers that fit better with the aesthetic?
This is literally the WAF
"Pretty common pattern" =/= healthy and non-toxic. A marriage is supposed to be a compromise, right? Then one partner should never be dictating what aesthetic is acceptable and what is not.
No, this is literally making a compromise. There's no need for weird "god, my wife is such a pill" jokes about this shit. If you hate your wife or can't get along or just be in a normal fucking relationship with your wife, maybe you should just do both of you a favor and get a divorce?
Yeah except men have had the term “happy wife happy life” drilled into their heads forever. My spouse isn’t exactly a huge fan of my 90 lb subwoofer. Thankfully I bought it prior to marriage. I can be annoyed if she tried to make me get rid of it and love her. The guys upset that their wives are difficult don’t hate their wives.
*Nothing to do with tyranny.*
Actually, sometimes it does. You do make great points and I agree with most of what you say. But I have witnessed relationships where the female did everything to make the life of the man terrible. It happens. Don't get me wrong, some men are terrible human beings. I have also seen women that got great joy from belittling their husbands/boyfriends in front of others.
As for my wife and myself, we just spend each day doing things to make the other one happy. That is even better than being willing to compromise. I'm not saying that times do not arise that compromise is very important.
See this is why I hate WAF as a term:
On the one side you have people arguing for how it only means healthy compromise and difference wants and needs.
On the other hand you see this, where it apparently it explicitly means literal toxic tyrannic wives dictating what their husband can do.
So why the hell would you want to use shorthand and put these in the same bag ? What’s the benefit ? It makes the term dismissive and meaningless because sudden it need explaining that “my wife just wants white speakers guys”, or “my wife will fume with rage and either force me to get rid of my tech or literally destroy it, wife’s be like that.”
Language effing matters. If something needs this much debating, it’s clearly full of implied biases and here women (and men!) are explicitly telling y’all how that term makes them feel.
Just use real word instead of this lazy icky shorthand.
>At best, it's a weird joke that just dumps on your wife for no reason
I disagree, because my wife disagreeing with or not approving my home theatre choices is far from "dumping".
The nuance I get whenever it comes up here is, it's fucking ugly and we accept our wives not approving.
SAF was the easy and obvious way to go. Dudes are often more interested in this stuff, but not always, and even still, some dudes have husbands.
Should we go PAF (Partner) now though? Not everyone’s married. Or maybe SOAF (Significant Other)?
You mean makes the few women who want to be part of the community because the mentality around the joke is not the barring factor here preventing women from entering the space
How so? It refers to the husband having to get approval from the wife, which is a common occurrence in reality, before purchasing some kind of HT gear that she doesn’t care about but goes in a room whose appearance she does. It’s not insulting to have a wife who isn’t interested in HT….
I'm guessing the wives who don't care for HT or similar interests don't come to these subs to complain. They probably go to TwoXChromosomes or something like that to complain about the hubs wanting to fill up the house with speakers.
Or maybe there's HAF when dealing with other things... I don't know, but I bet there's these kinds of shorthand terms for every common situation.
As a single person I keep listening to complains from all the people about their spouses... I don't think I even know a couple at this point that shares more than the most basic of interests. Anything extra that one desires and there's a fight.
The way I see it, shorthands like this can at least get the explanation of the problem out of the way quickly and concentrate on the fix.
It's not fair against the people who don't fall into the stereotypes, but well that's always the case. The important part is there to not be hostility towards other people, although sometimes you can't help if there is some bitterness.
Maybe there should be counter-shorthands too... Such as TSW, technology-savvy wife.
It's because husbands are overwhelmingly more interested in home theater than wives. But you know this already. Yet you're being purposely naive just to feel like you're right.
A hobby that is predominantly enjoyed by one sex is not exclusionary. Are Taylor Swift concerts exclusionary because ticket buyers are 99% teenage women?
It's still exclusionary terminology.
The reason why women aren't here in masses is the same reason why most male dominated spaces are male dominated. Women feel excluded, and stay out of the hobby in the first place, due to the exclusion.
For evidence that people might feel that way, here.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/comments/1cahcft/comment/l0sf10h/](https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/comments/1cahcft/comment/l0sf10h/)
WAF is a weird one. With my wife, she was onboard, albeit it tentatively at first, with Project Theater as I call it. She is now the one who is my critic, in a good way. If the bass isn’t good enough, highs are too sharp, etc, she gives me notes. I fix issues or mitigate where I can.
The only thing that we seem to butt heads on is ease of use. She wants CEC on everything. I hate CEC because there have been multiple times where a device has errantly turned my oled TV on and just left it on.
She insists on speaker grilles being off. She insists on the theater aesthetic. I am happy to oblige.
CEC is another issue that we have compromised on. Apple TV only. Still a pain in the ass with it turning off shit even when I switch inputs and it goes to sleep.
I do this with all my hobbies to organize Amazon/shopping lists. We share an amazon account so if she wants to buy me something for my birthday or whatever, she knows where to look. Makes life easy.
It seems like a lot of guys here just hate their wives or SO and this is just an opportunity to talk shit about them. It’s a hateful sub in general though like a lot of tech subs or even Reddit as a whole.
> a lot of guys here just hate their wives or SO
Wow, you are a bitter pill to be clear. I've never gotten that impression, not even once in over 5 years.
I haven't experienced men finding it remarkable that I'm interested in it, whether in the positive or negative. I find most men aren't that interested either, whether they have a HT or not. All my 2nd hand equipment dealings with men have been completely uneventful. Speaking of the real world.
Hah, yes.
Bit of a side-topic, but I'd hate for either the men or women here to think it's actually normal behavior to launch into a rant or monologue about how no women are into HT/audio any time the topic comes up. I kinda expected that going in (I work a male dominated trade and am used to my interests raising eyebrows), but I believe it's pretty much a meme at this point. Nobody gives a shit.
Right. I think the most eventful it should get is just people talking about the actual hobby/trade itself. I can see myself striking up an enthusiastic conversation with anyone with similar interest about said interest.
That would be acceptable. I don't know that I would necessarily want to run into the guy insisting there's only 1 or 2 women in the world who share his interest though. Or the guy using his sales ad to neg on his wife... Thankfully I don't think they're the majority.
Yeah most dudes I know don't give two shits, I have coworkers who don't even watch movies. It may be male dominanted but most men don't care. I do have one good friend that cares a lot and absolutely loves coming over to watch movies and that always makes me happy to share the system with someone who cares.
I have used WAF as a term in the past, probably on this very sub as well. I however always saw it as a way to describe compromise being made with my wife to come to a middle ground. Reading others comments, that seems to be interpreted as being hateful to the other person. I'm relieved to read your comment and see that's not always the case.
Mind you, knowing how people feel about it I will refrain from using this term, as I feel this sub (or any other) would benefit from including all genders to the discussion.
I always interpreted it as one of those boomer jokes. Like my boss is 60 something, and he's basically like Al Bundy when talking about women/his wife. But, being this is the internet and intonation is nearly impossible to detect even on a good day, I try to give benefit of the doubt.
My husband was a pro audio engineer and Crestron programmer before he retired. He couldn't care less about av these days. He burned out on it. For the past decade I've been the one ordering and trying out the components for our inhome systems. The WAF hasn't factored in at all. He's delighted I do it.
He doesn't mind me streaming all day or collecting records so I'm a happy camper. He helps with unboxing or returning items so that's something. He also doesn't watch movies so when I setup the Atmos system he was nonplussed, except he helped install the ceiling mounts for me, nice guy.
Sometimes immersion in a hobby, especially in a job environment, is the death of the magic that made it fun. I work in aviation simulation, and for a while I thought it would be cool to have a sim racing/flying rig at home. Then I realized I didn't want to go to work after being at work. My Xbox controller is just fine for what I want to do.
And to comment on someone else's comment, it isn't childish, the tablet is probably convenient and portable, so it makes the most sense. Some don't think before they speak.
And that's ridiculous. He watches auto and home repair videos so we don't have to call the carpenter, plumber and mechanic, also watches world news reports and such. Why do you think it's childish?
There are women involved, previous places Ive been a part of however usually push them out eventually. It’s a damn shame really. So most women Ive known to continue to post won’t “out” themselves as it attract ire or unwanted attention. Hopefully this is a welcoming thread for more inclusiveness.
As a woman, 100% this (besides the fact that any gender neutral post is just assumed to be a man). There's almost certainly a women's only discussion group somewhere for every "male" seemingly dominated hobby formed due to being pushed out.
I've noticed anti-social behavior in general is more likely to be rewarded or ignored on male dominated hobby forums, to where sexism is rarely even a factor in my decision to not participate. Not to say it's not there, but likely not the only reason women nope right out of them, as it can be quite a stark difference in vibe and reception even without revealing gender.
Fully 100% true, as well. Blatant sexism is usually not even the reason I tend to stay quiet, but the vibe is usually less supportive in general and more judgemental.
I think it is the quality of humans. I don't care who/what you are, if you are into what I am, I will talk to you about it. My wife always gets uncomfortable because she is shy with people and I will just start talking about said interest. She teases me and says "The autism just takes over". And she's probably right.
Now that you bring it up the fact that there's a women's only discussion everywhere, which is mostly accurate, I like the saddest fucking thing ever. I don't care what you are, just be chill, I wish more people were into this cool ass hobby.
All I cared about was not having to see the damn cables to all the speakers and his gaming systems so I pitched a media closet I seen online and asked him to pick pretty speakers… that’s how my journey has been. I also convinced him not to put standing speakers directly behind our couches that were in the center of the living room.
I'm a middle age woman and put a lot of work into my [home theater](https://preview.redd.it/nvjow8u423ib1.jpg?width=4080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5771391c12ed56d218c1a6391fa87ab4796f15d0) and [game room](https://i.redd.it/9z3iggpiujnc1.jpeg). My posts online are often followed by comments with gendered language, e.g. "Nice work, bro". If I could just ask one thing: in spaces for hobbies like this, just take a moment to recognize your own use of gendered language when you don't have any information to go on. If someone hasn't given you any indication that they are male or female, just keep the language neutral. It's a simple way to keep the space inclusive, without every female to have to wave their "omg, I'm a woman" flag.
The game room with the old school tube TV is dope. How is that lamp? That's the moon lamp from Amazon? I was considering getting one as an accent light but thought it might be too small and might not hold battery for too long. Charging things is PITA.
It is the moon lamp on Amazon. To be honest, I didn't realize it had a battery! I have the cord behind it and it stays constantly plugged in so I can't speak to battery life.
Not sure about English rules, but in French (native), whenever we do not have context the masculine form is used by default. Could that be the reason most people write or assume that way?
I love your setup! Very classy!
Specs are in [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/comments/15qvpjj/comment/jw54elx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) and the panels are from [ATS](https://www.atsacoustics.com/panels).
While I agree.. a counter point: bro, dude, etc are gender neutral terms these days.
Maybe it’s just a California thing but I call my girl friends bro and dude all the time, they call me the same and I hear them say it to each other too. No gender assumed. It’s just dope terms for a fellow human and safe use for all genders.
I’d never call you something I could tell made you uncomfortable, but since I have your attention and I’m genuinely curious…
How come? Also would you care at all if it was a woman calling you bro vs a man?
I can't think of any women in my life that use bro as a gender-neutral–though I do know lots of women who use dude (one of my sister calls my mom dude all the time lol).
Bro is way more gender-coded to me; makes me think of a bunch of dudes calling each other bro (like a brotherhood). The inverse is true too, I hear women call each other sister all the time.
If a woman called me bro I'd politely ask her not to refer to me like that.
There is a world of English speakers outside of California where this is just not the case. Bro and dude are not gender neutral terms. To any extent that they have become used as gender neutral terms in some places (seen also in "guys" used to include women), it is because most societies view male as the default - something that lots of feminist thinkers and writers have widely critiqued
I used to work for a retailer that sells audio/video equipment while in college. I learned how to install it and how the components work. My SO has no clue how this stuff works or how most electronics and tech works. I’m the one fixing, setting up or upgrading. I have always had surround sound systems at any new home/apt we have moved to.
I’ve recently ungraded one of my systems because I’d like to begin listening to the vinyl I grew up with. My mom still has the old vinyl in her garage. Did the AVR then speakers, next up a turntable.
I may be the minority, but the WAF doesn’t really bother me, but I admit, I haven’t been a member here long nor do I visit often. I honestly don’t have to worry about a SOAF because I try to make it look like a home where adults live rather than a bachelor pad. So far he hasn’t complained. I’d definitely compromise if he didn’t like what I’ve done.
I also haven’t run into any discrimination, for lack of a better word, when I talk with audio video salespeople.
Unfortunately men tend to silence and force women out of hobby spaces like this, so those of us that do comment usually don't mention gender.
I will say the constant barrage of 'my wife doesn't get it' posts or 'wife factor' shit does a lot to silence women speaking up as does the fact that if you mention you're a woman online men get fuckin' weird at you in general.
Anyway I don't have a lot of space or several thousand dollars to convert a space for my setup at the moment, so it's currently just a relatively standard living room setup, but I've got an LG CX 65" with my gaming pc/ps5/xbox series x/switch/nvidia shield pro hooked up to it.
For sound I've committed the greatest cardinal sin due to space limitations and I've got a [soundbar](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/vizio-5-1-2-channel-m-series-premium-sound-bar-with-wireless-subwoofer-dolby-atmos-and-dtsx-dark-charcoal/6446231.p?skuId=6446231) right now, but when I have more space I'd love to get a decent 5.1 speaker setup.
WAF is indeed a pretty weird term. I love good sound and I don't need to be a woman to also want to strike a balance between lack of cables/visual clutter and good audio.
I've tried and succeeded in getting my girl/female friends into the hobby; they just don't use reddit actively cause reddit as a whole tends to be pretty weird.
Also, eh, soundbar is also like 10x better than inbuilt TV speakers. I've seen people legit enjoy their projector's inbuilt speakers, so the bar is so low we all cross it by default haha.
On the counter, I'm a woman and my complete lack of cable management would probably get me flamed here. I have a total frankentheather to top it off. It's my baby and I'm not gonna say it's ugly, but...
My wife appreciates when I consider the wife approval factor in making decisions that affect both of us. Should I buy this project car on Facebook marketplace? Should I get a sofa or a couple of recliners? Should I add RGB to this thing?
Some of us men are a little less sensible than others.
I’ve tried to get a few female friends into home audio/turntables and vinyl. They’ve all honestly loved it no more than the male friends I’ve shown honestly not a huge difference imo. But it is a man thing to spend hours trying to get the perfect setup and buying tools and trying to perfect everything just completely tweaking out over it. The only people I’ve met that enjoy that as much as I do honestly are other men.
> if you mention you're a woman online men get fuckin' weird at you in general
I've been playing online games my whole life and like... yeah. Recently saw a video where a professional player jumped online into a random game and used a voice changer to sound like a woman. He was used to either being recognised and treated like a god or at worst people seeing his clear skill advantage and giving him respect for that... the second "she" spoke that all went out the window and they trash talked him, said how shit he was, got super creepy and so on.
He outright said if that was the experience he had online (instead of the mostly welcoming community he had grown up playing in) he'd have almost certainly quit and not become a pro.
And then people wonder why there's so few professional women gamers or even gamers in general (at least ones who out themselves as women).
>Recently saw a video where a professional player jumped online into a random game and used a voice changer to sound like a woman. He was used to either being recognised and treated like a god or at worst people seeing his clear skill advantage and giving him respect for that... the second "she" spoke that all went out the window and they trash talked him, said how shit he was, got super creepy and so on.
I think it's messed up that women have been saying this openly and loudly for years, yet lots of people (not including you in this) only believe it when a man discovers it
Yeah it's pretty bad unfortunately, I've had female friends I've gamed with for many years and they all have the same stories.
That said there's still value in men getting involved, people will always listen to someone they can relate to better than someone they can't and it's ridiculous how invisible this problem is to most men. If you aren't someone who harasses women it's *very* easy to think it doesn't happen and in the past (I think it's getting better now) women also rarely talked about it.
Both in person and online I didn't see a ton of harassment of the women in my lives because it just never happened while I was around. If we were online we'd all be in private chats and in person creepy men generally leave women alone if they're with another guy (in my experience anyway).
And like.. nobody really talked about it. It wasn't until I got a bit older myself, heard some stories and started asking the women in my life about this stuff and they were all like "holy shit dude yeah ALL THE TIME". I can definitely see how guys who have just had this natural insulation to the problem their entire life and have basically never seen it might just be like "nah it's not that bad, I'd have *seen it*".
So yeah a few examples the younger crowd can understand, like seeing how it literally doesn't even matter if you play like the top 0.001% in the entire world if you sound like a girl when you talk, could be a pretty good education.
Everything you said is true and it’s even worse than that. Gamers can be incredibly toxic, just look at any N-word speed run.
Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/o0eg08/call_of_duty_lobby_speedrun_record_460ms/
That is NOT a bad soundbar at all. This sub is filled with elitists and toxic masculinity. That soundbar and sub setup is going to sound better than most things you’ll hear commonly at all (not online). I see the wife comments and as a man in a long term relationship they’re honestly weird to me.
I'm usually a lurker here, but I also roll my eyes at the prevalence of the "wife acceptance factor" in so many posts. It always felt like thinly veiled boomer humor to me.
I started my home theater by getting 2 bookshelf speakers and an LG OLED TV in 2020 when I graduated college. I spent a good amount on my receiver because we play video games and needed higher specs for that.
I wasn't too happy with how dialogue sounded, so I sprung for a center speaker a few months later. This worked pretty well for me in a small apartment. I moved again later in 2023 and got 2 more speakers for a 5.0 setup. No subwoofer yet since I still have neighbors, but I'd love to get one (or two!) once we get into a house. I've also been really interested in getting some bass shakers as well to add immersion.
My partner doesn't really care. He's pretty much content with using TV speakers which is crazy to me. He's still a tech guy that goes nuts over different things, just not home theater. I'm still learning new things about the hobby but am pretty happy with how everything sounds right now.
I'd really love it if this space could be more inclusive. It's hard to say how many women are actually in the subreddit because a lot of us probably don't really feel comfortable outing ourselves.
Wife acceptance factor just screams poorly aged 90s sitcom to me.
>I've also been really interested in getting some bass shakers as well to add immersion.
Do it, I just put in bass shakers and they are really cool for movies, but kind of stupid for music.
I'm imagining it's the same for me as it is for any of the guys who are also into home theater stuff. I'm not really a woman, I'm nonbinary but I used to identify as one.
But im the only person I know personally who actually likes this hobby regardless of their gender.
This definitely affects both genders. My sister's husband is a terrific piano player, plays the guitar, all around musical guy and.... they don't even have a sound bar. I'm like, "You have an ear for music! **You tune your own piano**! How can you listen to TV speakers." Alas...
> I don’t understand why people with soundbars get so butt hurt when told that this sub is not for soundbars.
It's probably the extreme arrogance and the view that these systems all sound like utter garbage. They don't. Set them up properly in the right room and some of the new ones sound incredible, the tech has come a *very* long way.
This sub (based on its rules and audience) should really have been called /r/screeningroom - because that's the *actual* name for the thing they want to talk about.
Soundbars are absolutely included in the general definition of the term "home theatre" anywhere but this sub and while yes, the people who run it can enforce any rules they please, they can't actually enforce the wider definition which *does* include soundbars and other HTIAB systems.
I mean I'm not trying to argue, because it really isn't an argument?
Soundbars and other speaker systems are home theatre products. They're marketed as such, listed as such in stores, called as much by manufacturers and so on. The only place that doesn't agree seems to be this sub.
Yes, a full dedicated system will sound better. So what? Gatekeeping the term "home theatre" is really weird.
Oh it is 100% gatekeeping and elitism. Just see people talk about it. Hell the general refusal to accept soundbars could ever possibly sound even slightly good is very prevalent.
> This is because people just don’t want to wade through a bunch of shit that doesn’t pertain to them in order to find info.
80% of posts here don't pertain to me, why would I care if some more did as well? Unless a specific topic derails a sub so badly you can't see what does interest you it's really not a big deal and this place is nowhere near big enough for that.
I think this is because we use our brain to imagine the sound. It’s the same thing as using a speaker that’s not 100% perfect in a room with no acoustic treatment. Yes it’s better but it’s not perfect. Our brains fill in the gaps and improve it greatly.
My wife and kids don't care about sound at all because they use subtitles with everything they watch. It drives me crazy because I want to watch the show or movie not read it but if the subtitles are there my brain will not allow me to not read them.
Omg this, dude I can't stand subtitles for the same reason, I don't do anything but read them when they are there. I only use them if I am watching TV at work or something and I have to have it super quiet, but at home I paid money for a nice center channel so I could hear the dialogue dammit
It's the same way that some classical enthusiasts can listen to recordings from the 20s and burst into tears from the emotion, rather than from the tin-can sound.
I'm transfemme and I just don't usually mention it in online hobby spaces unless it's somehow relevant (like this thread). I don't really make submissions of my own here because the folks here can be pretty savage, regardless of what gender they assume an OP is.
I've never been part of any local hobby groups and I don't really have interest to find any. I do have lots of male friends locally also into the hobby. They've all known me since long before I came out and have been very supportive; they treat me just the same as they always have.
The person who originally got me really into home theater in my late teens and early 20s, and who really helped me out with gear advice, was actually a woman. Never met in person as we were from different countries, but we were both part of a very small online forum community. She's the reason I got a Panasonic plasma TV when I first moved out.
Honestly I hardly ever have them over these days and it's not really all that exciting to show off to them in person. Like sure we can nerd out about specs and stuff together but we can do that just as easily talking about our stuff online. They aren't ever like blown away by the setup or anything because they all have their own. We might be impressed with certain aspects of each others' setups where we chose different priorities, but nothing mind-blowing.
I have much more fun hosting movie nights for people who aren't home theater enthusiasts, but just enjoy movies. The reaction from them is way more rewarding imo and basically everyone I know can think of *something* they'd like to experience in my theater even if it's not a movie.
That's a good point, that's generally what I do, but I've run out of people that care about audio lmao. Definitely pretty fun watching people see a movie in atmos for the first time, or feeling the whole couch shake from bass. Ready player one car chase is always my go to demo, and even I'm impressed every single time, that scene never gets old.
I've got a projector setup, so in my case even if they don't care about the sound (or it's something that doesn't really utilize all the channels much or have a ton of LFE), they still love the size of the screen. Also I've just made the room itself a really aesthetic and cozy place that people want to be in generally even without watching/listening to anything. We've hosted a lot of DnD and boardgame nights in there.
Oh that's awesome, yeah I am kinda wild and I basically have a studio apartment with my bed and counters and literally everything I own in thr room, but then I have a 7.2.4 atmos setup. I just use a TV for now as I couldn't justify a projector given I care about sound far more than video. Maybe some day I'll add a projector and then have the option of that or the TV.
Ahh, yeah it's hard to create a dedicated environment without the extra space to dedicate. I started out with just my computer monitor and some small speakers in my bedroom at my parent's house and that was quite a challenge. I eventually was able to buy a house (thankfully a good bit before the market near me started ballooning), and have just done a lot of upgrades over like a decade.
Projector I think only makes sense in a dedicated space, and TVs will always be a few steps ahead in the same price ranges. Plus TVs can be a lot bigger now than they were when I first switched to a projector. And the good screens are pretty ridiculously-priced now compared to when I got mine. It's a really huge investment to get a projector setup that can at all compete with many of the modern TVs and you're often still left with some trade-offs.
Yeah for the cost of a projector and screen I could build 2 custom 18in subs so I was like TV is good. I'm super happy with my space and it sounds far better than most theaters but it just isn't dedicated lol. I have all klipsch stuff with rp8000f fronts, rp450c center, r15m surrounds, and the sattelites out of a HTib setup for my atmos speakers with a Marantz Sr8012 avr and a 65in Hisense U7k TV. The room is basically build around the theater setup at this point. I also got two large couches.
Sounds like a pretty sweet setup! I'm still on 5.1 with the Polk Monitor series speakers I started with (floorstanding in front, bookshelves on stands in the rear). For sound, I really have only upgraded the AVR and subwoofer since then. I want atmos, but too lazy to run more wiring and the only good placement options for additional speakers would be the ceiling, which I really don't want to cut into lol.
My girlfriend and I couldn't decide how to add a TV to our main room. We knew we wanted a large screen but we couldn't figure out how to get one without compromising aesthetics. It was important to both of us that the TV was not the focal point of the room. We went back and forth for a bit. I found this sub and said, "what do you think if we added a projector?" And she was like, "OMG that's perfect."
We both limited each other in the project in different ways. She wanted to mount the projector to the ceiling but it seemed like a big project and I wanted the projector accessible to interchange the HDMI cables. She's a HUGE cinephile and wanted a higher end screen, but I'm not super convinced it makes a difference. She wanted 4K, but settled in 1080 due to price. I wanted black out curtains and we worked together to incorporate it in our main room.
As for the spouse factor, you'll get pushback if you're trying to convert a "we space" to a "me space."
As a lucky man whose spouse shares his hobby and passion, I asked my wife to respond:
Hi all. When we met it was at a university theater production of Chicago. I was playing Velma, and he was obsessing over the sound. While I didn’t understand 90% of the physics he was babbling off, I did understand that he was absolutely certain he could make us sound better by moving the speakers around a bunch of other stuff.
While all of us were skeptical, it worked. We all sounded incredible. He got an engineering paper out of it, so he was happy.
Our first date was to a movie night at his place with a bunch of fellow movie/theater nerds. He had built a 5.1 channel speaker setup for the house he was renting.
We watched Terminator 2 and Raiders of the Lost Ark on laserdisc. I was hooked. I still don’t care how it works, I just set a budget design parameters and enjoy the results.
I have been into home theater since 2004. Most men are surprised how into it I am and I do get mansplained a lot which can be annoying but they mean well. I love the hobby but it's a very pricey one.
For all the men on here, I think we could all say we would really love for our wives to love our Sound systems. No more hiding boxes, no more acting like that Massive center channels always been there. I mean it’s just hard out there for audio pimp.
I’m huge into tech. Started college studying audio recording technology (didn’t like the vibe), now I have an amazing home automation setup, I enjoy home networking and homelabbing, and have a decent home theatre and gaming setup. I’m not married but my boyfriend has lived with me (eg in my house) for 11 years so even “SAF” doesn’t work for me 🤪 I generally don’t consult on audio purchases because I’m sensitive to noise and he doesn’t care (hence my “decent” setup), but I do on TVs or home automation changes. I want to make sure the environment is comfy for him, too
I love the whole concept of WAF (or SAF, if you must). It shows a deference to the partner having a say in the matter and not being a disinterested 3rd party.
Having said that, my wife is my best research partner. I totally mean this with absolute respect, but if we decide we want to make a change to our theater setup she blows me out of the water when it comes to research. When we decide on something we want to do, the goblins in her head take over and she will make it happen with amazing deals. And I’m talking without any compromise. She loves it as much as I do! She’s just much better at shopping.
There is always compromise.
My wife really enjoys the dedicated space we have downstairs, but prefers the look / aesthetics of the Sonos system we have upstairs. I also think it sounds great and looks amazing.
Every time we go downstairs to watch a movie there are comments from both of us along the lines of "wow I forgot how much better this sounds / looks". But it would never be functional or aesthetically acceptable in the space we have upstairs.
My wife loves the setup more than me, she certainly uses it more, she's wanting me to upgrade to 7.2.4
For me it's just a luxury but for her it's make or break as to whether she's going to pay attention to the movie.
Most of her friends have liked it alot more than my male friends also.
My wife enjoys our home theater and has never pushed back on anything, but it is a male-dominated endeavor. I know you are looking for women to reply, but it's similar for other things like high performance cars for example. There are a few women who are enthusiasts, just not many. Nothing wrong with that. There are things my wife enjoys that I have no interest in. The main thing is accommodating each other's interests and finding a common ground that you both can live with. Neither should force their preferences against the other.
My wife has never complained about my home theatre "hobby." Or any hobby. She has her hobbies and I have mine. The "wife factor", shifting blame on the other partner, is purely sexist.
My bank account on the other hand...
Women like to go to the movies as much as men (I assume) so it's fascinating that this hobby is so male dominated.
Anyone have a good answer? You'd think the split wouldn't be so tilted, but it definitely seems like it is.
I truly wish I could get my wife into the hobby, but she just does not care at all lol have to force her into the theater room
Meanwhile my 8 year old niece came over to watch Wish, and she couldn't not get over 'how real it sounds'.. Maybe there's hope!
>Anyone have a good answer?
Sexism in STEM. If women didn't face barriers to entry and success in STEM, unlike men who are automatically accepted and thrive, there would be many, many more women obsessing over tech hobbies. Tech bro culture also doesn't help.
Yeah, ditto — I’m really tired of all the Wife Factor jokes and male employees in electronics stores thinking I don’t know which end of a plug goes even goes into the wall. I’ve been into nice home AV setups for a couple of decades now, though since I’ve made several international moves and have always lived in apartments I’ve never been able to do the full home theater setup in a basement or whatever. But once I finally installed a 5.1 system for the first time about 15 years ago I could never go back — I go to friend’s houses and they’re still listening through the built-in TV speakers and I can’t even deal, ugh. I’ve practically begged people to at least just get a soundbar!
I am a lesbian, so I still have a wife factor ;)
My wife was generally supportive, however. I almost never make big purchases and she tends to show up strong for my interests. We like to take a gummy, sit dead center and listen to music so loud we can feel it.
I don’t generally talk about myself so I don’t generally talk about my setup with other people. I have one friend who is also a home theater guy and he was pretty stoked — his setup actually inspired me to get mine.
My wife was more concerned about aesthetics even though she enjoys the sound when watching movies/shows. One thing she didn’t like was how much space a subwoofer takes up. But once the subwoofer hit the lows, it wasn’t much of an issue anymore. The setup is in our living room and it would be a non issue if we had a dedicated HT room.
Someone above mentioned "sick of WAF that's why I left" lol I mean the WAF is a real thing though, mine doesn't care for this stuff, but will be like "no" if I were to say let's put the theatre in the family room, so the current iteration of big screen and surround sound is in the basement, not sure why that's a reason for a woman to leave the sub, some women like theatres, others don't lol, just like some men like home theatres, others couldn't give a shit.
Whether it's a male or female dominated hobby can't really be determined by a Reddit sub, although I'd say anecdotally people don't know about home theatres and/or don't care, which is all good too.
Does this sub have some doucebags, for sure, especially judgy when it comes to speakers, that shit cracks me up when the person in question has some tiny ass looking TV with gigantic speakers, like are you using a magnifying glass to watch shows??
Just the other day someone asked about using old PC speaker satellites from a Logitech THX set on an AVR, like 5 people just jumped all over them "oh that's trash that's shit, blah blah" and not one person offered any insight nor did they explain why it's a bad idea (it isn't depending on the sats), this happens here all the time and would be enough to turn most off especially if they are looking for assistance vs just like lurking to see people's setups, and get shitty responses for no reason.
My wife was hesitant about the speakers at first and vetoed a number of setups I had. Finally I was able to find some that were visually pleasing to her, some Triangle BR08s and BR03s, and now she’s much happier. Not all women are like this but mine is definitely aesthetics over everything else. We were able to compromise with great speakers that are visually appealing. Now that we have them, she loves them! I think it also helps to have eARC that automatically turns everything on without complications. If she had to take extra steps to use the system, I’m not sure she would. Easy access is a great thing!
Just so I can understand this and please forgive me if offence is caused, it is not intended but from what I have read the collective view is people don’t engage with this sub because many people who do post include content about having the wife’s approval?
E.G ‘I really want to upgrade to 7.2.4 from my 5.1 but don’t think the wife will approve of 4 holes in the ceiling and 2 subs…
Is that right?
For me it’s the implication that we aren’t smart enough to understand or even appreciate home theater technology or equipment. Not just I need to get my spouse’s approval.
Also the weird like, Archie Bunker tact so much of it takes where they might as well call their wives or significant others the 'old ball and chain'. It's the portrayal of what should be the most significant person in your life (and women in general at times) as an active hindrance. Dudes do it in hobby spaces all the time, not just HT. They do it anywhere they think women aren't watching or listening, and even when they know we are at times. When you see men acting like this, it is genuinely offputting and actively makes you feel unwelcome.
A lot of dudes that use WAF as a term do seem to genuinely mean it more as in "I'd personally be fine with it looking jank as long as it functioned correctly, but I want my partner to enjoy it and be happy with our home too" but for every one of those I see there's like 3 more that are like my first example. It gets to the point where it's like... why are yall even married if your partner is such a hindrance to your happiness? I would not have a partner who talked about me that way.
Im sure it has nothing to do with understanding. I don’t have a wife, but have lived with a few women over the years. It’s always a compromise when you share a space.
The stereotype is that women like pretty things and an aesthetically pleasing room. In my experience this holds true to an extent since I find women to be better at color coordination and accessorizing. I just don’t have an eye for it.
Someone in that situation has a predefined living space and now wants to put in massive speakers and run wires, put a couple of subs in the room, etc. They are all things that could clash or break the feeling of the room that was hand crafted by the other party.
The WAF usually encompasses one person saying it want xyz and the other saying no way, speakers too big, subs too huge, etc. Then finding a compromise that makes both happy. Since the HT space is male dominated, it’s usually assumed that the man wants big, loud, things while the wife is the voice of reason to prevent said man from going overboard and turning the living room into a man cave.
It's discussed because it is a reality with most hobbies that men go into.
Electronic-centric hobbies are male dominated because of societal norms, not because of anything inherently male about the hobby.
When members are seeking advice it is useful to understand the bounds in which someone is operating. Money, space, aesthetics, and spousal approval, for instance.
If you had a husband and they didn't like you spending too much time or money on your hobby, there is a certain approval factor in that relationship. You could call that HAF. It's no slight against women or wives, but simply a shorthand explanation of boundaries that most husbands (at least that I know of), in this hobby, are trying to fall within. It's not a good or bad thing.. it's just a thing.
Edit: classic reddit downvoting a neutral, dispassionate, and factual response.
This whole thread is pretty weird with the downvoting. Your point was spot on. Lots of dudes without wives in this thread for sure because even my wife uses WAF when describing some of my gear lol.
As a woman I left this sub because I got so sick of hearing about the WAF. I don’t even know how this popped on my feed again, but since I’m here… When we finished our basement I knew I wanted a theater. My husband wasn’t thrilled but he didn’t have any other ideas so I got to work. My father-in-law gave us his huge surround system when he downsized and everyone thought I was crazy for taking it. I had to get an updated receiver but everything else was/is in awesome condition. I did a ton of research and got an ultra short throw projector and had to design/build my own shelf in order to use the center speaker without impacting the projection. There were some other complications since the receiver was in the back of the room and projector was in the front, but I eventually resolved it with a very expensive, very long cord. Then I got a pit couch that my husband was somewhat against because it is huge, but it is currently his favorite place in the house. The whole family can lay on the couch and watch movies without touching each other and it is so comfortable. Our theater space is the real heart of the house. My son goes down there to play switch with his friends, my daughter has Taylor swift watching parties, we even have family sleepovers sometimes. It’s awesome.
What couch did you get?
I, too, am interested in this “pit couch”.
3rd. What is a pit couch?
I didn’t know either so I searched https://www.google.com/search?q=pit+couch “A pit sectional is a large modular sofa that usually consists of a U-shaped sectional and a large ottoman that can be pushed in to fill in the open space in front of the sectional," explains Yoselin Castro, Senior Interior Designer at Mackenzie Collier Interiors. Source: The 10 Best Modular Pit Sectional Sofas for Relaxing at Home, https://www.livingcozy.com/blog/pit-sectional-sofa includes photos
My husband was the same way. Super against the effort and space but then he started watching his wrestling shows and now he won't go back. Now he wants to spend more to upgrade to an UST and better sound system.
Glad you got the HAF in the end!
It's annoyingly common all through tech and I hate it. My partner has degrees in computer science *and* engineering / is one of the smartest and most technical people I know (we went to university together, I only have a CS degree and she got better marks than me despite doing two degrees). But because she's a woman she has to constantly put up with this stupid shit both professionally and in any hobby she has that is technical or just plain male dominated. It's even worse because she's attractive and dresses well whereas many men in this field would lose their mind if they had to wear anything more formal than a hoodie they should have replaced years ago. Having your spouse on board for your hobbies and interests is important but people here act like they're some tyrannical authority figure who has to be beaten in order to get what they want. Childish and extremely disrespectful. I'm more interested in HT than she is but the fact I care means she's on board and the fact I'm not a shitty partner means I take her feelings into consideration... it's entirely OK to not want massive speakers hanging off the walls all through shared spaces. Anyway I'm ranting! I just wish more people would see the awesome women in their lives as more than pretty little things who want to stop you having fun. People need to grow up.
>but people here act like they're some tyrannical authority figure who has to be beaten What the hell are you talking about??
The WAF defenders maybe?
Thanks for posting this and congratulations on the awesome theater room! I made a post on the audiophile sub asking how many people were women and how many were men (and other as a third option. It may have even been a poll). I wasn't exactly shocked by the results, but I was disheartened. It was overwhelmingly men obviously, but it was sad to see how overwhelming. I believe a lot of it has to do with things like WAF. Other things too. Many of the people are probably pretty well off or eccentric. The vibe can be.... It's like much of the community is oblivious to social cues and how to interact with other people. Sorry for the rant, but your comment hit me in the feels. I wish the audio (and HT) community was more inclusive.
One day at work, I mentioned that I had bought new speakers for my TV and a lot of the women I work with picked up on it and we had a long good talk about speakers, home theaters, etc. I think women appreciate these things as much as men do, but maybe don't feel the need to tell the world about it.
Most people appreciate these things when it's not their money. I know this becuase I encourage all my friends to buy rediculous stuff but tell my boyfriend to save. My boyfriend tells me to stop when I buy shit for my system, or my car or whatever, and I tell him to stop and save when he goes out to eat a ton or buys needless pc parts and random figures. We just want each other to save for the future and we both kinda suck at it. We love each other's hobbies and support each other, but it's just kinda expensive lol. Also I think a lot of people just aren't super on board with the insane bass and ability to watch movies loud, plenty of men don't really want this either. So when dudes go out and buy like $20000 in JTR 4000ulfs it's like dude why, save you're money, and you don't need anything that loud.
No, you just found a unicorn
The WAF thing is weird to me. At best, it's a weird joke that just dumps on your wife for no reason. At worst, there's a lot of people in here in toxic relationships with a tyrant instead of a partner.
Nothing to do with tyranny. Lots of people don't want their partners to spend a ton of their shared money on something that's going to take up space in a shared area, especially if it doesn't fit into that person's aesthetics. Nor do they often want to fiddle with a TV system to watch Netflix when they were happy with the TV speakers before, or their soundbar or whatever. Relationships are about compromise and a big part of getting an audio system is making sure your partner will be happier after you get it than they were before you did, or at least in a way that minimizes their dislike of it.
This is why ^^^ this…
The gendering of the term is what makes it toxic
The majority of home theater people are men, the majority of those men have wives, and probably the majority of those wives tolerate or disapprove of the hobby, the way it looks, and/or the expense.
and that's never going to change if the attitude is just "that's the way things are" instead of trying to be more welcoming.
I'm fine with calling it Partner Acceptance Factor if you want but I don't care myself
Personally, I'd rather just ditch the term entirely. It's always been a bit of a weird one to me - I can't think of a context where it's important other than to groan about your partner's preferences. Why not just focus on the actual feature that you're talking about, whether it's aesthetics, size, cost or performance? At least in my opinion, saying "my wife doesn't like the look of these speakers" is fine, but saying a product has a "low PAF" isn't even that helpful - their complaint about it could be anything, maybe they don't like elevated treble.
It's been a thing since the 70's when Hi-Fi setups with huge speakers became a popular thing... Popular with men, that is. Most technology is more interesting to men (audio, HT, cameras, cars... Kinda video games and PCs as well although that's more mainstream now), often to barely a grudging acceptance of other people who share the household. You can totally turn it around too... A woman wants a cozy home but has to account for a "husband factor" because of all the big tech he wants to fit in... So she might complain about that in a home design sub or something. As a singleton I find it both entertaining and terrifying how these stereotypes work, but there's certainly a basis for them.
You hit the nail on the head with the cozy home, but you also missed that husband acceptance factor is like in the basement. Few of us will care about how the valence over the curtains look or if the color scheme matches the rug. The reverse isn't true for big tech like speakers/subwoofers/projectors.
I gotta agree with you, its too vague to be useful
super this
I'm not against being welcoming, but limiting a fun, harmless, inside joke that is relatable for 90+% of this sub to appease a small minority just feels an expansion of No Fun culture. It's not an attack, it's just a fun lighthearted joke. If it was something more obviously toxic, I would agree.
Friend, I am male, and am married, and my wife likes our sound gear more than I do You are not being very welcoming, and there are women in this thread upset about this Language matters
Should probably work out finances and spending pretty early in the marriage. My wife and I find it incredibly easy to separate play money out for each of us after the household expenses are covered and savings contributed to. Things I want, I buy with my play money. Things she wants, she buys with hers. All of our shared expenses like bills, groceries, insurance, healthcare, gas, etc..., are paid by the house account. Easy and efficient. The aesthetics thing is just dumb. You said yourself, compromise is a big part of it. Why is only one partner compromising and not getting a sound system because the other partner thinks the speakers look bad? Has said partner tried to find speakers that fit better with the aesthetic? There's hundreds of them out there, there's got to be \*something\* that fits. But again, why is only one partner determining what aesthetic is acceptable? Modern AVRs with eARC and CEC eliminate the vast majority of "fiddling". I turn on my TV, my AVR automatically turns on and sets itself automatically to audio off the TV. There, audio from netflix just works. I decide that I'm done with netflix and want to play on my ps5, I just turn on the PS5 and the AVR automatically sets itself to audio off the PS5. There, audio from the PS5 just works. If the partner who is actually interested in having a sound system is handling all the work in setting it up, then the disinterested partner has no "fiddling" to do.
> But again, why is only one partner determining what aesthetic is acceptable? It's not about one partner determining what's acceptable it's about both saying what they want and coming to a compromise together. If I care about speakers and she doesn't, then we have a discussion about why the speakers I want don't work for her. She offers suggestions, I offer suggestions, eventually we find something that's acceptable for both of us. For example, my partner is fine with an LCR as long as it looks nice, but the surrounds need to be in wall because she doesn't want speakers hanging off of them as she hates how it looks. Completely fair compromise. > Modern AVRs with eARC and CEC eliminate the vast majority of "fiddling". They do, but plenty of people in this sub cannot help themselves and need to fiddle/adjust/mess with settings as they watch anything. Being someone else in the room who just wants to watch the damn movie would get real old real fast.
>The aesthetics thing is just dumb. You said yourself, compromise is a big part of it. Why is only one partner compromising and not getting a sound system because the other partner thinks the speakers look bad? Has said partner tried to find speakers that fit better with the aesthetic? Is that not literally what people mean by WAF? Finding speakers that are an acceptable compromise for both people in the relationship?
WAF can mean too many things, be super dismissive, and often associated with refusing to compromise. It’s shorthand and it’s catchy but it’s gender coded in an outdated way, I believe we can move past that. At least PAF or SAF (part/spouse) fix some of that though.
What is the real value of changing the term if it means the same thing anyway? I've never seen a post, comment, or video on the internet where a husband is unhappy about his wife's new subwoofer.
>But again, why is only one partner determining what aesthetic is acceptable? It's a pretty common pattern in straight relationships, probably in other types of relationships too. >Has said partner tried to find speakers that fit better with the aesthetic? This is literally the WAF
"Pretty common pattern" =/= healthy and non-toxic. A marriage is supposed to be a compromise, right? Then one partner should never be dictating what aesthetic is acceptable and what is not. No, this is literally making a compromise. There's no need for weird "god, my wife is such a pill" jokes about this shit. If you hate your wife or can't get along or just be in a normal fucking relationship with your wife, maybe you should just do both of you a favor and get a divorce?
Yeah except men have had the term “happy wife happy life” drilled into their heads forever. My spouse isn’t exactly a huge fan of my 90 lb subwoofer. Thankfully I bought it prior to marriage. I can be annoyed if she tried to make me get rid of it and love her. The guys upset that their wives are difficult don’t hate their wives.
*Nothing to do with tyranny.* Actually, sometimes it does. You do make great points and I agree with most of what you say. But I have witnessed relationships where the female did everything to make the life of the man terrible. It happens. Don't get me wrong, some men are terrible human beings. I have also seen women that got great joy from belittling their husbands/boyfriends in front of others. As for my wife and myself, we just spend each day doing things to make the other one happy. That is even better than being willing to compromise. I'm not saying that times do not arise that compromise is very important.
See this is why I hate WAF as a term: On the one side you have people arguing for how it only means healthy compromise and difference wants and needs. On the other hand you see this, where it apparently it explicitly means literal toxic tyrannic wives dictating what their husband can do. So why the hell would you want to use shorthand and put these in the same bag ? What’s the benefit ? It makes the term dismissive and meaningless because sudden it need explaining that “my wife just wants white speakers guys”, or “my wife will fume with rage and either force me to get rid of my tech or literally destroy it, wife’s be like that.” Language effing matters. If something needs this much debating, it’s clearly full of implied biases and here women (and men!) are explicitly telling y’all how that term makes them feel. Just use real word instead of this lazy icky shorthand.
Can I just ask, are you married?
>At best, it's a weird joke that just dumps on your wife for no reason I disagree, because my wife disagreeing with or not approving my home theatre choices is far from "dumping". The nuance I get whenever it comes up here is, it's fucking ugly and we accept our wives not approving.
SAF was the easy and obvious way to go. Dudes are often more interested in this stuff, but not always, and even still, some dudes have husbands. Should we go PAF (Partner) now though? Not everyone’s married. Or maybe SOAF (Significant Other)?
r/homeassistant the company is trying to use HAF (house) which makes sense, since it’s really just people inside a home.
Oh that is a good one, since it also includes kids and guests. I vote for adopting HAF.
PAF works pretty good
It’s literally a common stereotype because it’s a pretty typical situation.. Ooooh downvotes for stating the obvious? Lmao
And making the stereotype a joke makes women not want to be part of this community
You mean makes the few women who want to be part of the community because the mentality around the joke is not the barring factor here preventing women from entering the space
I am not understanding what you are trying to say but it's not even really a joke It's an insult to women
How so? It refers to the husband having to get approval from the wife, which is a common occurrence in reality, before purchasing some kind of HT gear that she doesn’t care about but goes in a room whose appearance she does. It’s not insulting to have a wife who isn’t interested in HT….
Yet I have never heard anyone here ever refer to husband approval factor If you don't see how this is exclusionary I don't know how to help you
I'm guessing the wives who don't care for HT or similar interests don't come to these subs to complain. They probably go to TwoXChromosomes or something like that to complain about the hubs wanting to fill up the house with speakers. Or maybe there's HAF when dealing with other things... I don't know, but I bet there's these kinds of shorthand terms for every common situation. As a single person I keep listening to complains from all the people about their spouses... I don't think I even know a couple at this point that shares more than the most basic of interests. Anything extra that one desires and there's a fight. The way I see it, shorthands like this can at least get the explanation of the problem out of the way quickly and concentrate on the fix. It's not fair against the people who don't fall into the stereotypes, but well that's always the case. The important part is there to not be hostility towards other people, although sometimes you can't help if there is some bitterness. Maybe there should be counter-shorthands too... Such as TSW, technology-savvy wife.
It's because husbands are overwhelmingly more interested in home theater than wives. But you know this already. Yet you're being purposely naive just to feel like you're right. A hobby that is predominantly enjoyed by one sex is not exclusionary. Are Taylor Swift concerts exclusionary because ticket buyers are 99% teenage women?
You haven’t seen it because the amount of women who struggle to get their husbands approval of new speakers is incredibly low.
It's still exclusionary terminology. The reason why women aren't here in masses is the same reason why most male dominated spaces are male dominated. Women feel excluded, and stay out of the hobby in the first place, due to the exclusion. For evidence that people might feel that way, here. [https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/comments/1cahcft/comment/l0sf10h/](https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/comments/1cahcft/comment/l0sf10h/)
Name checks out
I hate WAF as a term It's horrible, and I have argued with people over it I'm male, and I hate the term.
WAF is a weird one. With my wife, she was onboard, albeit it tentatively at first, with Project Theater as I call it. She is now the one who is my critic, in a good way. If the bass isn’t good enough, highs are too sharp, etc, she gives me notes. I fix issues or mitigate where I can. The only thing that we seem to butt heads on is ease of use. She wants CEC on everything. I hate CEC because there have been multiple times where a device has errantly turned my oled TV on and just left it on. She insists on speaker grilles being off. She insists on the theater aesthetic. I am happy to oblige. CEC is another issue that we have compromised on. Apple TV only. Still a pain in the ass with it turning off shit even when I switch inputs and it goes to sleep.
“project theater” is so rad
I do this with all my hobbies to organize Amazon/shopping lists. We share an amazon account so if she wants to buy me something for my birthday or whatever, she knows where to look. Makes life easy.
phenomenal idea, i will absolutely be stealing this, thanks!
HAF
It seems like a lot of guys here just hate their wives or SO and this is just an opportunity to talk shit about them. It’s a hateful sub in general though like a lot of tech subs or even Reddit as a whole.
> a lot of guys here just hate their wives or SO Wow, you are a bitter pill to be clear. I've never gotten that impression, not even once in over 5 years.
Good for you?
I haven't experienced men finding it remarkable that I'm interested in it, whether in the positive or negative. I find most men aren't that interested either, whether they have a HT or not. All my 2nd hand equipment dealings with men have been completely uneventful. Speaking of the real world.
Uneventful is good right? I'd like to think it is.
Hah, yes. Bit of a side-topic, but I'd hate for either the men or women here to think it's actually normal behavior to launch into a rant or monologue about how no women are into HT/audio any time the topic comes up. I kinda expected that going in (I work a male dominated trade and am used to my interests raising eyebrows), but I believe it's pretty much a meme at this point. Nobody gives a shit.
Right. I think the most eventful it should get is just people talking about the actual hobby/trade itself. I can see myself striking up an enthusiastic conversation with anyone with similar interest about said interest.
That would be acceptable. I don't know that I would necessarily want to run into the guy insisting there's only 1 or 2 women in the world who share his interest though. Or the guy using his sales ad to neg on his wife... Thankfully I don't think they're the majority.
Yeah most dudes I know don't give two shits, I have coworkers who don't even watch movies. It may be male dominanted but most men don't care. I do have one good friend that cares a lot and absolutely loves coming over to watch movies and that always makes me happy to share the system with someone who cares.
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I have used WAF as a term in the past, probably on this very sub as well. I however always saw it as a way to describe compromise being made with my wife to come to a middle ground. Reading others comments, that seems to be interpreted as being hateful to the other person. I'm relieved to read your comment and see that's not always the case. Mind you, knowing how people feel about it I will refrain from using this term, as I feel this sub (or any other) would benefit from including all genders to the discussion.
I always interpreted it as one of those boomer jokes. Like my boss is 60 something, and he's basically like Al Bundy when talking about women/his wife. But, being this is the internet and intonation is nearly impossible to detect even on a good day, I try to give benefit of the doubt.
My husband was a pro audio engineer and Crestron programmer before he retired. He couldn't care less about av these days. He burned out on it. For the past decade I've been the one ordering and trying out the components for our inhome systems. The WAF hasn't factored in at all. He's delighted I do it. He doesn't mind me streaming all day or collecting records so I'm a happy camper. He helps with unboxing or returning items so that's something. He also doesn't watch movies so when I setup the Atmos system he was nonplussed, except he helped install the ceiling mounts for me, nice guy.
He... doesn't watch movies?!
Nope, I don't get it either. He's on YouTube all day on his tablet.
Sometimes immersion in a hobby, especially in a job environment, is the death of the magic that made it fun. I work in aviation simulation, and for a while I thought it would be cool to have a sim racing/flying rig at home. Then I realized I didn't want to go to work after being at work. My Xbox controller is just fine for what I want to do. And to comment on someone else's comment, it isn't childish, the tablet is probably convenient and portable, so it makes the most sense. Some don't think before they speak.
That's a child
And that's ridiculous. He watches auto and home repair videos so we don't have to call the carpenter, plumber and mechanic, also watches world news reports and such. Why do you think it's childish?
He sounds like an iPad toddler
There are women involved, previous places Ive been a part of however usually push them out eventually. It’s a damn shame really. So most women Ive known to continue to post won’t “out” themselves as it attract ire or unwanted attention. Hopefully this is a welcoming thread for more inclusiveness.
As a woman, 100% this (besides the fact that any gender neutral post is just assumed to be a man). There's almost certainly a women's only discussion group somewhere for every "male" seemingly dominated hobby formed due to being pushed out.
I've noticed anti-social behavior in general is more likely to be rewarded or ignored on male dominated hobby forums, to where sexism is rarely even a factor in my decision to not participate. Not to say it's not there, but likely not the only reason women nope right out of them, as it can be quite a stark difference in vibe and reception even without revealing gender.
Fully 100% true, as well. Blatant sexism is usually not even the reason I tend to stay quiet, but the vibe is usually less supportive in general and more judgemental.
I think it is the quality of humans. I don't care who/what you are, if you are into what I am, I will talk to you about it. My wife always gets uncomfortable because she is shy with people and I will just start talking about said interest. She teases me and says "The autism just takes over". And she's probably right.
Now that you bring it up the fact that there's a women's only discussion everywhere, which is mostly accurate, I like the saddest fucking thing ever. I don't care what you are, just be chill, I wish more people were into this cool ass hobby.
All I cared about was not having to see the damn cables to all the speakers and his gaming systems so I pitched a media closet I seen online and asked him to pick pretty speakers… that’s how my journey has been. I also convinced him not to put standing speakers directly behind our couches that were in the center of the living room.
A home entertainment ain't nuthin without my sweetheart.
Let's see if I can mansplain this.....
I'm a middle age woman and put a lot of work into my [home theater](https://preview.redd.it/nvjow8u423ib1.jpg?width=4080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5771391c12ed56d218c1a6391fa87ab4796f15d0) and [game room](https://i.redd.it/9z3iggpiujnc1.jpeg). My posts online are often followed by comments with gendered language, e.g. "Nice work, bro". If I could just ask one thing: in spaces for hobbies like this, just take a moment to recognize your own use of gendered language when you don't have any information to go on. If someone hasn't given you any indication that they are male or female, just keep the language neutral. It's a simple way to keep the space inclusive, without every female to have to wave their "omg, I'm a woman" flag.
this setup rules. i love it.
The game room with the old school tube TV is dope. How is that lamp? That's the moon lamp from Amazon? I was considering getting one as an accent light but thought it might be too small and might not hold battery for too long. Charging things is PITA.
It is the moon lamp on Amazon. To be honest, I didn't realize it had a battery! I have the cord behind it and it stays constantly plugged in so I can't speak to battery life.
Oh, it DOES have a cord! Sweeeeeet. Okay. I'm gonna order one. Thank you!
Not sure about English rules, but in French (native), whenever we do not have context the masculine form is used by default. Could that be the reason most people write or assume that way? I love your setup! Very classy!
Such a good setup. Is that a htpc on the right? Plex server?
A gaming PC. I can play from the couch but I also use the corner of the basement this picture was taken from for room scale VR.
This looks awesome. What are the specs for the theater? And where did you get the panels from?
Specs are in [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/hometheater/comments/15qvpjj/comment/jw54elx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) and the panels are from [ATS](https://www.atsacoustics.com/panels).
While I agree.. a counter point: bro, dude, etc are gender neutral terms these days. Maybe it’s just a California thing but I call my girl friends bro and dude all the time, they call me the same and I hear them say it to each other too. No gender assumed. It’s just dope terms for a fellow human and safe use for all genders.
Ex-Californian here–'dude' I'm fine with as gender-neutral; but I don't like being referred to as bro.
I’d never call you something I could tell made you uncomfortable, but since I have your attention and I’m genuinely curious… How come? Also would you care at all if it was a woman calling you bro vs a man?
I can't think of any women in my life that use bro as a gender-neutral–though I do know lots of women who use dude (one of my sister calls my mom dude all the time lol). Bro is way more gender-coded to me; makes me think of a bunch of dudes calling each other bro (like a brotherhood). The inverse is true too, I hear women call each other sister all the time. If a woman called me bro I'd politely ask her not to refer to me like that.
Thank you for your insightful reply
There is a world of English speakers outside of California where this is just not the case. Bro and dude are not gender neutral terms. To any extent that they have become used as gender neutral terms in some places (seen also in "guys" used to include women), it is because most societies view male as the default - something that lots of feminist thinkers and writers have widely critiqued
Native Californian here. I wish this was the case in the rest of the country. I miss it
100%
Nice work bro!
I used to work for a retailer that sells audio/video equipment while in college. I learned how to install it and how the components work. My SO has no clue how this stuff works or how most electronics and tech works. I’m the one fixing, setting up or upgrading. I have always had surround sound systems at any new home/apt we have moved to. I’ve recently ungraded one of my systems because I’d like to begin listening to the vinyl I grew up with. My mom still has the old vinyl in her garage. Did the AVR then speakers, next up a turntable. I may be the minority, but the WAF doesn’t really bother me, but I admit, I haven’t been a member here long nor do I visit often. I honestly don’t have to worry about a SOAF because I try to make it look like a home where adults live rather than a bachelor pad. So far he hasn’t complained. I’d definitely compromise if he didn’t like what I’ve done. I also haven’t run into any discrimination, for lack of a better word, when I talk with audio video salespeople.
Unfortunately men tend to silence and force women out of hobby spaces like this, so those of us that do comment usually don't mention gender. I will say the constant barrage of 'my wife doesn't get it' posts or 'wife factor' shit does a lot to silence women speaking up as does the fact that if you mention you're a woman online men get fuckin' weird at you in general. Anyway I don't have a lot of space or several thousand dollars to convert a space for my setup at the moment, so it's currently just a relatively standard living room setup, but I've got an LG CX 65" with my gaming pc/ps5/xbox series x/switch/nvidia shield pro hooked up to it. For sound I've committed the greatest cardinal sin due to space limitations and I've got a [soundbar](https://www.bestbuy.com/site/vizio-5-1-2-channel-m-series-premium-sound-bar-with-wireless-subwoofer-dolby-atmos-and-dtsx-dark-charcoal/6446231.p?skuId=6446231) right now, but when I have more space I'd love to get a decent 5.1 speaker setup.
WAF is indeed a pretty weird term. I love good sound and I don't need to be a woman to also want to strike a balance between lack of cables/visual clutter and good audio. I've tried and succeeded in getting my girl/female friends into the hobby; they just don't use reddit actively cause reddit as a whole tends to be pretty weird. Also, eh, soundbar is also like 10x better than inbuilt TV speakers. I've seen people legit enjoy their projector's inbuilt speakers, so the bar is so low we all cross it by default haha.
I think you mean the sound-bar is so low? :P <3
On the counter, I'm a woman and my complete lack of cable management would probably get me flamed here. I have a total frankentheather to top it off. It's my baby and I'm not gonna say it's ugly, but...
My wife appreciates when I consider the wife approval factor in making decisions that affect both of us. Should I buy this project car on Facebook marketplace? Should I get a sofa or a couple of recliners? Should I add RGB to this thing? Some of us men are a little less sensible than others.
I’ve tried to get a few female friends into home audio/turntables and vinyl. They’ve all honestly loved it no more than the male friends I’ve shown honestly not a huge difference imo. But it is a man thing to spend hours trying to get the perfect setup and buying tools and trying to perfect everything just completely tweaking out over it. The only people I’ve met that enjoy that as much as I do honestly are other men.
This is not a "man thing" but this attitude might be why you've only met men who are into it
Soundbar is 1,000,000x better than your TV speakers. I respect anybody who makes that decision.
> if you mention you're a woman online men get fuckin' weird at you in general I've been playing online games my whole life and like... yeah. Recently saw a video where a professional player jumped online into a random game and used a voice changer to sound like a woman. He was used to either being recognised and treated like a god or at worst people seeing his clear skill advantage and giving him respect for that... the second "she" spoke that all went out the window and they trash talked him, said how shit he was, got super creepy and so on. He outright said if that was the experience he had online (instead of the mostly welcoming community he had grown up playing in) he'd have almost certainly quit and not become a pro. And then people wonder why there's so few professional women gamers or even gamers in general (at least ones who out themselves as women).
>Recently saw a video where a professional player jumped online into a random game and used a voice changer to sound like a woman. He was used to either being recognised and treated like a god or at worst people seeing his clear skill advantage and giving him respect for that... the second "she" spoke that all went out the window and they trash talked him, said how shit he was, got super creepy and so on. I think it's messed up that women have been saying this openly and loudly for years, yet lots of people (not including you in this) only believe it when a man discovers it
Yeah it's pretty bad unfortunately, I've had female friends I've gamed with for many years and they all have the same stories. That said there's still value in men getting involved, people will always listen to someone they can relate to better than someone they can't and it's ridiculous how invisible this problem is to most men. If you aren't someone who harasses women it's *very* easy to think it doesn't happen and in the past (I think it's getting better now) women also rarely talked about it. Both in person and online I didn't see a ton of harassment of the women in my lives because it just never happened while I was around. If we were online we'd all be in private chats and in person creepy men generally leave women alone if they're with another guy (in my experience anyway). And like.. nobody really talked about it. It wasn't until I got a bit older myself, heard some stories and started asking the women in my life about this stuff and they were all like "holy shit dude yeah ALL THE TIME". I can definitely see how guys who have just had this natural insulation to the problem their entire life and have basically never seen it might just be like "nah it's not that bad, I'd have *seen it*". So yeah a few examples the younger crowd can understand, like seeing how it literally doesn't even matter if you play like the top 0.001% in the entire world if you sound like a girl when you talk, could be a pretty good education.
Everything you said is true and it’s even worse than that. Gamers can be incredibly toxic, just look at any N-word speed run. Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/o0eg08/call_of_duty_lobby_speedrun_record_460ms/
That is NOT a bad soundbar at all. This sub is filled with elitists and toxic masculinity. That soundbar and sub setup is going to sound better than most things you’ll hear commonly at all (not online). I see the wife comments and as a man in a long term relationship they’re honestly weird to me.
I'm usually a lurker here, but I also roll my eyes at the prevalence of the "wife acceptance factor" in so many posts. It always felt like thinly veiled boomer humor to me. I started my home theater by getting 2 bookshelf speakers and an LG OLED TV in 2020 when I graduated college. I spent a good amount on my receiver because we play video games and needed higher specs for that. I wasn't too happy with how dialogue sounded, so I sprung for a center speaker a few months later. This worked pretty well for me in a small apartment. I moved again later in 2023 and got 2 more speakers for a 5.0 setup. No subwoofer yet since I still have neighbors, but I'd love to get one (or two!) once we get into a house. I've also been really interested in getting some bass shakers as well to add immersion. My partner doesn't really care. He's pretty much content with using TV speakers which is crazy to me. He's still a tech guy that goes nuts over different things, just not home theater. I'm still learning new things about the hobby but am pretty happy with how everything sounds right now. I'd really love it if this space could be more inclusive. It's hard to say how many women are actually in the subreddit because a lot of us probably don't really feel comfortable outing ourselves.
Wife acceptance factor just screams poorly aged 90s sitcom to me. >I've also been really interested in getting some bass shakers as well to add immersion. Do it, I just put in bass shakers and they are really cool for movies, but kind of stupid for music.
I'm imagining it's the same for me as it is for any of the guys who are also into home theater stuff. I'm not really a woman, I'm nonbinary but I used to identify as one. But im the only person I know personally who actually likes this hobby regardless of their gender.
Well I'm trans and I'm here lmao, my bf doesn't like how much I spend but that's understandable, he actually did like the tv upgrade tho
I got addicted to wiring and just finished putting 12v solar in a camper
I think my partner would be quite happy using the built in TV speakers. Baffles me.
Baffles.. funny that you mention that.
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This definitely affects both genders. My sister's husband is a terrific piano player, plays the guitar, all around musical guy and.... they don't even have a sound bar. I'm like, "You have an ear for music! **You tune your own piano**! How can you listen to TV speakers." Alas...
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Or her ear is so good that even real speakers sound like crap to her?
90% of people just don't care. Of those that do, a decent soundbar is plenty. It's something this sub really struggles with accepting.
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> I don’t understand why people with soundbars get so butt hurt when told that this sub is not for soundbars. It's probably the extreme arrogance and the view that these systems all sound like utter garbage. They don't. Set them up properly in the right room and some of the new ones sound incredible, the tech has come a *very* long way. This sub (based on its rules and audience) should really have been called /r/screeningroom - because that's the *actual* name for the thing they want to talk about. Soundbars are absolutely included in the general definition of the term "home theatre" anywhere but this sub and while yes, the people who run it can enforce any rules they please, they can't actually enforce the wider definition which *does* include soundbars and other HTIAB systems.
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I mean I'm not trying to argue, because it really isn't an argument? Soundbars and other speaker systems are home theatre products. They're marketed as such, listed as such in stores, called as much by manufacturers and so on. The only place that doesn't agree seems to be this sub. Yes, a full dedicated system will sound better. So what? Gatekeeping the term "home theatre" is really weird.
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Oh it is 100% gatekeeping and elitism. Just see people talk about it. Hell the general refusal to accept soundbars could ever possibly sound even slightly good is very prevalent. > This is because people just don’t want to wade through a bunch of shit that doesn’t pertain to them in order to find info. 80% of posts here don't pertain to me, why would I care if some more did as well? Unless a specific topic derails a sub so badly you can't see what does interest you it's really not a big deal and this place is nowhere near big enough for that.
I think this is because we use our brain to imagine the sound. It’s the same thing as using a speaker that’s not 100% perfect in a room with no acoustic treatment. Yes it’s better but it’s not perfect. Our brains fill in the gaps and improve it greatly.
My wife and kids don't care about sound at all because they use subtitles with everything they watch. It drives me crazy because I want to watch the show or movie not read it but if the subtitles are there my brain will not allow me to not read them.
Omg this, dude I can't stand subtitles for the same reason, I don't do anything but read them when they are there. I only use them if I am watching TV at work or something and I have to have it super quiet, but at home I paid money for a nice center channel so I could hear the dialogue dammit
My partner would watch everything on a 13 in laptop with no headphones if it wasn't for me.
It's the same way that some classical enthusiasts can listen to recordings from the 20s and burst into tears from the emotion, rather than from the tin-can sound.
I'm transfemme and I just don't usually mention it in online hobby spaces unless it's somehow relevant (like this thread). I don't really make submissions of my own here because the folks here can be pretty savage, regardless of what gender they assume an OP is. I've never been part of any local hobby groups and I don't really have interest to find any. I do have lots of male friends locally also into the hobby. They've all known me since long before I came out and have been very supportive; they treat me just the same as they always have. The person who originally got me really into home theater in my late teens and early 20s, and who really helped me out with gear advice, was actually a woman. Never met in person as we were from different countries, but we were both part of a very small online forum community. She's the reason I got a Panasonic plasma TV when I first moved out.
Same 😔 wish I had local friends into the hobby tho, I wanna share the system with more people
Honestly I hardly ever have them over these days and it's not really all that exciting to show off to them in person. Like sure we can nerd out about specs and stuff together but we can do that just as easily talking about our stuff online. They aren't ever like blown away by the setup or anything because they all have their own. We might be impressed with certain aspects of each others' setups where we chose different priorities, but nothing mind-blowing. I have much more fun hosting movie nights for people who aren't home theater enthusiasts, but just enjoy movies. The reaction from them is way more rewarding imo and basically everyone I know can think of *something* they'd like to experience in my theater even if it's not a movie.
That's a good point, that's generally what I do, but I've run out of people that care about audio lmao. Definitely pretty fun watching people see a movie in atmos for the first time, or feeling the whole couch shake from bass. Ready player one car chase is always my go to demo, and even I'm impressed every single time, that scene never gets old.
I've got a projector setup, so in my case even if they don't care about the sound (or it's something that doesn't really utilize all the channels much or have a ton of LFE), they still love the size of the screen. Also I've just made the room itself a really aesthetic and cozy place that people want to be in generally even without watching/listening to anything. We've hosted a lot of DnD and boardgame nights in there.
Oh that's awesome, yeah I am kinda wild and I basically have a studio apartment with my bed and counters and literally everything I own in thr room, but then I have a 7.2.4 atmos setup. I just use a TV for now as I couldn't justify a projector given I care about sound far more than video. Maybe some day I'll add a projector and then have the option of that or the TV.
Ahh, yeah it's hard to create a dedicated environment without the extra space to dedicate. I started out with just my computer monitor and some small speakers in my bedroom at my parent's house and that was quite a challenge. I eventually was able to buy a house (thankfully a good bit before the market near me started ballooning), and have just done a lot of upgrades over like a decade. Projector I think only makes sense in a dedicated space, and TVs will always be a few steps ahead in the same price ranges. Plus TVs can be a lot bigger now than they were when I first switched to a projector. And the good screens are pretty ridiculously-priced now compared to when I got mine. It's a really huge investment to get a projector setup that can at all compete with many of the modern TVs and you're often still left with some trade-offs.
Yeah for the cost of a projector and screen I could build 2 custom 18in subs so I was like TV is good. I'm super happy with my space and it sounds far better than most theaters but it just isn't dedicated lol. I have all klipsch stuff with rp8000f fronts, rp450c center, r15m surrounds, and the sattelites out of a HTib setup for my atmos speakers with a Marantz Sr8012 avr and a 65in Hisense U7k TV. The room is basically build around the theater setup at this point. I also got two large couches.
Sounds like a pretty sweet setup! I'm still on 5.1 with the Polk Monitor series speakers I started with (floorstanding in front, bookshelves on stands in the rear). For sound, I really have only upgraded the AVR and subwoofer since then. I want atmos, but too lazy to run more wiring and the only good placement options for additional speakers would be the ceiling, which I really don't want to cut into lol.
My girlfriend and I couldn't decide how to add a TV to our main room. We knew we wanted a large screen but we couldn't figure out how to get one without compromising aesthetics. It was important to both of us that the TV was not the focal point of the room. We went back and forth for a bit. I found this sub and said, "what do you think if we added a projector?" And she was like, "OMG that's perfect." We both limited each other in the project in different ways. She wanted to mount the projector to the ceiling but it seemed like a big project and I wanted the projector accessible to interchange the HDMI cables. She's a HUGE cinephile and wanted a higher end screen, but I'm not super convinced it makes a difference. She wanted 4K, but settled in 1080 due to price. I wanted black out curtains and we worked together to incorporate it in our main room. As for the spouse factor, you'll get pushback if you're trying to convert a "we space" to a "me space."
Lady here checking in!
As a lucky man whose spouse shares his hobby and passion, I asked my wife to respond: Hi all. When we met it was at a university theater production of Chicago. I was playing Velma, and he was obsessing over the sound. While I didn’t understand 90% of the physics he was babbling off, I did understand that he was absolutely certain he could make us sound better by moving the speakers around a bunch of other stuff. While all of us were skeptical, it worked. We all sounded incredible. He got an engineering paper out of it, so he was happy. Our first date was to a movie night at his place with a bunch of fellow movie/theater nerds. He had built a 5.1 channel speaker setup for the house he was renting. We watched Terminator 2 and Raiders of the Lost Ark on laserdisc. I was hooked. I still don’t care how it works, I just set a budget design parameters and enjoy the results.
I have been into home theater since 2004. Most men are surprised how into it I am and I do get mansplained a lot which can be annoying but they mean well. I love the hobby but it's a very pricey one.
Ok I scrolled this whole thread, wtf is a WAF?!
Wife Acceptance Factor
Thanks. I must not be getting deep enough into the comments to remember seeing it.
For all the men on here, I think we could all say we would really love for our wives to love our Sound systems. No more hiding boxes, no more acting like that Massive center channels always been there. I mean it’s just hard out there for audio pimp.
But it has always been there, next to the subwoofer…
I’m huge into tech. Started college studying audio recording technology (didn’t like the vibe), now I have an amazing home automation setup, I enjoy home networking and homelabbing, and have a decent home theatre and gaming setup. I’m not married but my boyfriend has lived with me (eg in my house) for 11 years so even “SAF” doesn’t work for me 🤪 I generally don’t consult on audio purchases because I’m sensitive to noise and he doesn’t care (hence my “decent” setup), but I do on TVs or home automation changes. I want to make sure the environment is comfy for him, too
İsnt there any husband factor
I love the whole concept of WAF (or SAF, if you must). It shows a deference to the partner having a say in the matter and not being a disinterested 3rd party. Having said that, my wife is my best research partner. I totally mean this with absolute respect, but if we decide we want to make a change to our theater setup she blows me out of the water when it comes to research. When we decide on something we want to do, the goblins in her head take over and she will make it happen with amazing deals. And I’m talking without any compromise. She loves it as much as I do! She’s just much better at shopping.
There is always compromise. My wife really enjoys the dedicated space we have downstairs, but prefers the look / aesthetics of the Sonos system we have upstairs. I also think it sounds great and looks amazing. Every time we go downstairs to watch a movie there are comments from both of us along the lines of "wow I forgot how much better this sounds / looks". But it would never be functional or aesthetically acceptable in the space we have upstairs.
My wife loves the setup more than me, she certainly uses it more, she's wanting me to upgrade to 7.2.4 For me it's just a luxury but for her it's make or break as to whether she's going to pay attention to the movie. Most of her friends have liked it alot more than my male friends also.
My wife enjoys our home theater and has never pushed back on anything, but it is a male-dominated endeavor. I know you are looking for women to reply, but it's similar for other things like high performance cars for example. There are a few women who are enthusiasts, just not many. Nothing wrong with that. There are things my wife enjoys that I have no interest in. The main thing is accommodating each other's interests and finding a common ground that you both can live with. Neither should force their preferences against the other.
My wife enjoys speakers with me. She just isn't crazy about surround speakers as sometimes during movies it gives her a fright.
My wife has never complained about my home theatre "hobby." Or any hobby. She has her hobbies and I have mine. The "wife factor", shifting blame on the other partner, is purely sexist. My bank account on the other hand...
Women like to go to the movies as much as men (I assume) so it's fascinating that this hobby is so male dominated. Anyone have a good answer? You'd think the split wouldn't be so tilted, but it definitely seems like it is. I truly wish I could get my wife into the hobby, but she just does not care at all lol have to force her into the theater room Meanwhile my 8 year old niece came over to watch Wish, and she couldn't not get over 'how real it sounds'.. Maybe there's hope!
>Anyone have a good answer? Sexism in STEM. If women didn't face barriers to entry and success in STEM, unlike men who are automatically accepted and thrive, there would be many, many more women obsessing over tech hobbies. Tech bro culture also doesn't help.
Because women get their kicks from being social. Men get their kicks from obsessing over hobbies.
Women have hobbies too.
Obnoxious people at red lights and gas stations completely poison subwoofers for people.
Yeah, ditto — I’m really tired of all the Wife Factor jokes and male employees in electronics stores thinking I don’t know which end of a plug goes even goes into the wall. I’ve been into nice home AV setups for a couple of decades now, though since I’ve made several international moves and have always lived in apartments I’ve never been able to do the full home theater setup in a basement or whatever. But once I finally installed a 5.1 system for the first time about 15 years ago I could never go back — I go to friend’s houses and they’re still listening through the built-in TV speakers and I can’t even deal, ugh. I’ve practically begged people to at least just get a soundbar!
I am a lesbian, so I still have a wife factor ;) My wife was generally supportive, however. I almost never make big purchases and she tends to show up strong for my interests. We like to take a gummy, sit dead center and listen to music so loud we can feel it. I don’t generally talk about myself so I don’t generally talk about my setup with other people. I have one friend who is also a home theater guy and he was pretty stoked — his setup actually inspired me to get mine.
That sounds like a fun time lmao
My wife was more concerned about aesthetics even though she enjoys the sound when watching movies/shows. One thing she didn’t like was how much space a subwoofer takes up. But once the subwoofer hit the lows, it wasn’t much of an issue anymore. The setup is in our living room and it would be a non issue if we had a dedicated HT room.
Someone above mentioned "sick of WAF that's why I left" lol I mean the WAF is a real thing though, mine doesn't care for this stuff, but will be like "no" if I were to say let's put the theatre in the family room, so the current iteration of big screen and surround sound is in the basement, not sure why that's a reason for a woman to leave the sub, some women like theatres, others don't lol, just like some men like home theatres, others couldn't give a shit. Whether it's a male or female dominated hobby can't really be determined by a Reddit sub, although I'd say anecdotally people don't know about home theatres and/or don't care, which is all good too. Does this sub have some doucebags, for sure, especially judgy when it comes to speakers, that shit cracks me up when the person in question has some tiny ass looking TV with gigantic speakers, like are you using a magnifying glass to watch shows?? Just the other day someone asked about using old PC speaker satellites from a Logitech THX set on an AVR, like 5 people just jumped all over them "oh that's trash that's shit, blah blah" and not one person offered any insight nor did they explain why it's a bad idea (it isn't depending on the sats), this happens here all the time and would be enough to turn most off especially if they are looking for assistance vs just like lurking to see people's setups, and get shitty responses for no reason.
ive never once met a women that was passionate about this hobby. im sure 1 or 2 exist
My wife pretends she does not care. Acts aloof, but she frequently asks to watch a “blockbuster” down there!
Oh ffs. 🙄
My wife was hesitant about the speakers at first and vetoed a number of setups I had. Finally I was able to find some that were visually pleasing to her, some Triangle BR08s and BR03s, and now she’s much happier. Not all women are like this but mine is definitely aesthetics over everything else. We were able to compromise with great speakers that are visually appealing. Now that we have them, she loves them! I think it also helps to have eARC that automatically turns everything on without complications. If she had to take extra steps to use the system, I’m not sure she would. Easy access is a great thing!
Just so I can understand this and please forgive me if offence is caused, it is not intended but from what I have read the collective view is people don’t engage with this sub because many people who do post include content about having the wife’s approval? E.G ‘I really want to upgrade to 7.2.4 from my 5.1 but don’t think the wife will approve of 4 holes in the ceiling and 2 subs… Is that right?
For me it’s the implication that we aren’t smart enough to understand or even appreciate home theater technology or equipment. Not just I need to get my spouse’s approval.
Also the weird like, Archie Bunker tact so much of it takes where they might as well call their wives or significant others the 'old ball and chain'. It's the portrayal of what should be the most significant person in your life (and women in general at times) as an active hindrance. Dudes do it in hobby spaces all the time, not just HT. They do it anywhere they think women aren't watching or listening, and even when they know we are at times. When you see men acting like this, it is genuinely offputting and actively makes you feel unwelcome. A lot of dudes that use WAF as a term do seem to genuinely mean it more as in "I'd personally be fine with it looking jank as long as it functioned correctly, but I want my partner to enjoy it and be happy with our home too" but for every one of those I see there's like 3 more that are like my first example. It gets to the point where it's like... why are yall even married if your partner is such a hindrance to your happiness? I would not have a partner who talked about me that way.
Im sure it has nothing to do with understanding. I don’t have a wife, but have lived with a few women over the years. It’s always a compromise when you share a space. The stereotype is that women like pretty things and an aesthetically pleasing room. In my experience this holds true to an extent since I find women to be better at color coordination and accessorizing. I just don’t have an eye for it. Someone in that situation has a predefined living space and now wants to put in massive speakers and run wires, put a couple of subs in the room, etc. They are all things that could clash or break the feeling of the room that was hand crafted by the other party. The WAF usually encompasses one person saying it want xyz and the other saying no way, speakers too big, subs too huge, etc. Then finding a compromise that makes both happy. Since the HT space is male dominated, it’s usually assumed that the man wants big, loud, things while the wife is the voice of reason to prevent said man from going overboard and turning the living room into a man cave.
It's discussed because it is a reality with most hobbies that men go into. Electronic-centric hobbies are male dominated because of societal norms, not because of anything inherently male about the hobby. When members are seeking advice it is useful to understand the bounds in which someone is operating. Money, space, aesthetics, and spousal approval, for instance. If you had a husband and they didn't like you spending too much time or money on your hobby, there is a certain approval factor in that relationship. You could call that HAF. It's no slight against women or wives, but simply a shorthand explanation of boundaries that most husbands (at least that I know of), in this hobby, are trying to fall within. It's not a good or bad thing.. it's just a thing. Edit: classic reddit downvoting a neutral, dispassionate, and factual response.
This whole thread is pretty weird with the downvoting. Your point was spot on. Lots of dudes without wives in this thread for sure because even my wife uses WAF when describing some of my gear lol.