The Best Compliment You've Gotten On Your Rig?

"That's some good sounds" from a non-phile (I don't know any philes) and all the while I was thinking how subpar the system sounds for a mid fi system, especially for the money invested.

My dad, looking at ten years of accumulated gear switched from "you're insane" to "huh. that sounds pretty good".

Have had more people comment on the size of my cd collection which isn't really all that big. My system is very modest and sits in a spare bedroom so it doesn't see a lot of visitors.
One painful memory I recall is when my wife was showing a few of her friends around the house and she got to my "stereo room." They were actually giggling at the size of my speakers, a pair of Eminent Technology LFT-8As at the time. I felt like I was standing there naked. My wife remembers it differently. They were laughing at something entirely different and weren't even considering my speakers but I know the truth.

Best compliment was from my UPS delivery guy.

Once while waiting for me to sign for a box he saw my speakers, paused and then said,

"Wow, those speakers are huge, I'll bet they sound as good as Bose"

I didn't turn them on, wouldn't want a disappointed listener :-).

Almost no one really cares about listening to my system. A have a few audio buddies over from time to time, but besides that, it is pretty much a solitary pursuit. But that's OK.

However, just the other day I had a reviewer friend up from NYC come by to hear my new front end. He goes to 40-50 live shows a year and does a lot of listening. After about an hour of hearing my LPs he said something like, "All I want to do is listen to more music. I don't hear the system at all. It's very natural sounding and you know it as soon as you hear it." A man of few words, that's about all he said during the whole session.

An older woman heard me play "Silent Night" on the Proprius Cantata Domino LP and it immediately took her back to her childhood in East Germany. She sat there quietly weeping until the song was over. She was utterly transported. That was quite a moving and memorable experience.

Well, I'm going back to do some more listening by myself.