Many higher end preamps are dated and ugly, why is this?

Alas, this is true of many audiophiles.

We must be careful what we ask the mirror.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/canary4/903.html

Check that one out all high performance design in four chassis true dual mono

I like the Audio GD, fully balanced, which is ~ $3300 from Underwood HiFi. There's an ad for it today

While I am not a fan of gear that looks like it was created by amateurs from articles in Popular Electronics I think that a lot of vintage gear is nice looking.

Some of mine:

To me the epitome of a beautiful preamp is the MBL 6010D.

Looks are important. Surely speakers are most prominent and the most important visual. Personally, I find most box speakers somewhat unattractive. At least the square box ones. Sonus Farber has sculpted boxes which are very aesthetic pleasing. For box components, I have always liked AR. They are always substantial looking. But when it comes to performance of any speaker of component, if they sound good they become good looking… sort of.

I love ugly gear too..... some of my best sounding equipment has been plain jane.

Forget looks.... let's talk functionality!  What's up with the new high end preamps that have NO controls at all.  How is that a preamp??  Also, many just have one control knob, but no labeling. How would you ever know how to turn on the stereo without some instructions??  

My last pre with digital volume was a McCormack , and while it was good I missed the traditional rotary volume knob.   I like tactile switches , buttons, knobs.  My preamp has way more functionality than it's looks suggest .   It has conventional controls, remote vol, mute, and Mono, it can drive 2 stereo amps via RCA and 2 via XLR ,  HT passthrough,   plenty of inputs.   Unreal sound quality .....  that was a good buy 

Pre-amps are engineering products built to do a job.  For most that job is not to look beautiful.  As most here have said, the important job is to process signals accurately and without unwanted artifacts.

ARC epitomises that, having sold amps for more than 60 years that all look pretty much the same externally.  I have no issue with that.  It cements brand image.  The visual aesthetics are entirely functional, but excellently executed in terms of materials and build quality.  In fact I like it.

What we really don't need is bling for the sake of bling.  Amplifiers are not art objects.  D'Agostino falls for that, although he didn't when he ran Krell.  And he's certainly not the worst.

But let us be thankful the bling hasn't gone as far as it has in turntables, where nearly all high-end units are grossly over-designed, over-weight and over-priced.  For goodness sake, all they have to do is spin a record.

One person's sexy is another person's ugly, and vice versa.... People do have different aesthetic tastes, after all... 

That classe stuff embodies everything i hate about US design.

Sharp edges and corners- terrible feng shui. Ye olde tourist trappe script- urgh.

Oversize faceplates, rack mounts that noone uses, unsoftened brutalism throughout, no. Just no

My Rogers integrated and phono pre look so cool that several female non-audiophiles have said, “ooh” and “ahh”.  This was unprecedented in my experience.  It also contributes to domestic harmony.   

PS Audio equipment are designed to look nice, compatible with each other & look  like high quality gear, equipment.  Buy, all!. 

Cary is very nice but the problem is it doesn’t offer a fully functional remote. How stupid is that what is wrong with these guys?

Many Audiophiles are dated and ugly. Why is this?

We prefer experienced and classic looks. 

Counterexample: Nagra HD Pre.

"One does not see what is in front of their eyes, one sees what is behind their eyes"

...or the more common truism "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

Sandthemall has some really interesting comments. What an interesting occupation which I guess is designing how things look. And with so many really amazing looking things out there you would think the attractiveness of how things look would lure people in and make them feel good before they purchase and would entice audio component manufacturers to step their game up. People who buy audio equipment do have a sense of taste and are not all resigned to say only the sound matters.

So manufacturers do not invest in the appearance of the product and there are exceptions of course. We all have our superficial side and a side of substance and many of us are interested in the quality of components. So how much are they really spending on what goes inside the box, how much can they get away with by diminishing the Quality of the inner workings of audio gear.

we can see the exterior of audio gear and the lack of functionality Of the remote control at times which is incredibly annoying. but How do we know what’s going on inside the box. How much are they spending on all the parts, how much are they getting away with. Attenuators, capacitors, wiring connections, Transformers, cabinets, etc, there is limited information on all this when you read about what you’re going to purchase aside from everything you’re reading that most do not understand.

My guess is that the electrical parts inside the box are less than 10% of the sales price. How often do you read in marketing descriptions proclaiming which parts are really fantastic and have cost a lot of money for the manufacturer. And when you do see a cost referred to it’s not very much in the scheme of things and what about the other things. It’s all touted as something wonderful as if something is being sacrificed by the manufacturer in making a product, how thankful we should be - if I’m spending North of $10,000, 15,000 or $20,000 I would hope they’re spending good money on the materials.