When I first moved in with my fiance, my two soon-to-be stepsons (aged 17 and 19) were thrilled that "Ed's Stereo" was coming in along with me. I had told them that they could use it in my absence, provided they handled the equipment, my CD's and my records with the same care that I did. Yeah, right....

Fortunately, I had a system that consisted of a preamp, two power amps (one for the main speakers, and the other for the sub), a tuner, a CD player, a cassette deck, a reel-to-reel deck, and a turntable. This wasn't too difficult for my stepsons to figure out how to use, but I also had a complete stack of dbx sound processing equipment: a dynamic range expander; an EQ; a subharmonic frequency synthesizer and a powered signal router to connect all this stuff. All of this "stuff" was so confusing to my stepsons, that they simply could never figure out how to even turn the system on, so they left it alone. And, I never made any attempt to explain the system's operation to them either.

My stepchildren are now grown and out on their own, so that's no longer a concern. My wife loves to listen to my system just as much as I do, but hasn't a clue as to how to operate it, and doesn't want to know either, so the one and only person who handles it is me. And I don't for a minute think I'm being selfish in any way.