How Much Do Aesthetics Factor Into Your Decisions?

WAF  rules in my house so I had a special hardwood cabinet made to house all of my equipment including 2 turntables, 2 monoblock Classe amps and all sorts of other electronic components. When not listening to music, the cabinet remains shut and being a nice piece of cherry wood furniture, adds a complement to my living room. However changing cables is a real pain(I didn't think about this when I had the cabinet designed!!!!)

Me never. Sound is all that matters.  Now having said that, I kicked the old lady out a couple years ago, so I no longer have to worry about WAF.

Depends on the room it's going in for me but, I guess the look/vibe of equipment plays a big part and weighs on my psyche when purchasing. No other explaination then for the 20yo Chord power/pre I just purchased. Looks incredible and rolled the dice on Chord after studying their reviews; was a great call. They play wonderfully! Oh, I gotta add something super annoying to me... people, when you post your pics showing you setup, or you post an add featuring your gear for sale, my God, PLEASE don't include your nasty-ass feet in the pics. It's vile, gross and no matter what you're trying to show or sell, it makes us all take a hard pass; it's disgusting. Just my opinion...

Speakers?  They have to pass the wife "not in my living room" filter.*

Electronics?  ZERO  In a cabinet.   Even when I was 20-ish, I never fell for the big stack to impress anyone. It is all about the sound. Use the money for better circuits. 

I don't pick on Mac for their style. Their products were always at least good. Decent, well built and durable. That was their market.  In the tube days, their transformers rivaled Luxman as the very best.  Sound per dollar; Denon, Yamahammer etc. Kenwood made tuners that smoked a Mac. Oh, well Mac speakers were both ugly and terrible. 

OK, I do like the metal case of my Atom+ amp over the plastic case of my Atom+ DAC?  Yea as they sit on my desk, but is it worth $10?  Well, I can buy a handful of 69 cent CDs from Goodwill and get far more music listening from that. Do add value to the billet machined block a Quetest comes in?  No. I would rather pay $500 less for plastic. 

* Vetoed the 2Ce's.  Only stand mount are acceptable. 

Tony, an advantage of being retired and grey haired, is we can get away being a crumedgon so brown shoes, or blue sneakers, with a tux are just fine as long as my feet don't hurt. :)

It’s a factor.  Lots of good sounding gear but they all look different. 

@tvrgeek ...."...I can relate, man..." ;)

Some mornings, your eyes open and flashback to an alt surreality with a desire to spend the day with this on the car tunes, windows down, and frighten the kids with yourself playing this obscenely Loud.....

...just because you can... 

Personally, I've never descended to this level of crud underfoot (hate face-planting on mystery muck) but can remember those who did in their wasted youth...

...spouse laughed at the line "...cocaine and a bottle of gin..."

Not a gin person, myself...🙄

(Yes, I put this on my playlist....)

for me a lot.

For me, it's a hobby. It's always been about the sound

My two systems couldn’t look or be more different especially the amp

Yes

Lucky me I’ve loved the look and sound from all my audio equipment. But I would say it has to be something that I would also love to look at while playing music. For example I love to look at all those tubes glowing from my Audio Research Ref 750 mono blocks at night in the pitch black of my music room and get memorized by them and the sound quality of them. Now for my B&W 800 matrix speakers I’ve always loved the way they looked ever since I saw them in Stereophile in 91. Had to have them from looks alone. Bought them without even hearing them. And love the sound from them just as much as looking at them. Same with my ARC Ref 750s. Bought them without even hearing them. And couldn’t be happier. 

In a living area aesthetics are very important. Therefore small and unobtrusive.  In a listening area (home theater, music room) aesthetics mean nothing. Performance is everything.

To me if it sounds beautiful it is beautiful. 

Aesthetics are not high on my list - to the point where unless they are disgustingly ugly (and I have seen some that are) I only look for good sound.  I did have a minor battle with my wife when I acquired big Wilsons - first when three large crates weighing 1100 lbs. showed up and again when I had to explain that the speaker grilles had to be taken off  for listening (presumably viewed by he-who-must-be-obeyed as making them even uglier).

36-24-36 … good aesthetics…

is there an “understood” metric equivalent?