I don't think it is unusual at all to want your audio equipment to look good. As mentioned, we almost expect our cars to look good.....some looking better than others, of course.
I can vouch for the high end camera world. Many folks want their camera to look good.
Watches. Fountain pens. Shotguns. Furniture. All functional things and all of which can be incredibly beautiful for the price.
Apple brought industrial design to computers. And people wanted them.
All of my hi-fi gear is inherited which means I did not select the gear. Most of it I consider to be rather dull looking. Some of it has a certain beauty in it functional approach (AR LS-16) but the Levinson amp is a dull metal block. The only gear I have that is actually attractive are my Aerial Acoustic 6T towers. They are quite elegant.
Most of my gear is visible within the rooms they inhabit. The rooms are decorated nicely. One of the rooms is fairly formal. That's where the 6Ts are. If I were buying audio gear right now, at prices commensurate with the prices of the gear I have now, I would actively seek out gear that was attractive and fit the room it would go in. And there is plenty of high end audio gear with superb industrial design that borders on the artistic.
There is also a ton of audio gear out there that seems to have been designed to look simply industrial. Others it seems are designed to assault the eyes. Some of those enormous Wilson speakers come to mind.
I can vouch for the high end camera world. Many folks want their camera to look good.
Watches. Fountain pens. Shotguns. Furniture. All functional things and all of which can be incredibly beautiful for the price.
Apple brought industrial design to computers. And people wanted them.
All of my hi-fi gear is inherited which means I did not select the gear. Most of it I consider to be rather dull looking. Some of it has a certain beauty in it functional approach (AR LS-16) but the Levinson amp is a dull metal block. The only gear I have that is actually attractive are my Aerial Acoustic 6T towers. They are quite elegant.
Most of my gear is visible within the rooms they inhabit. The rooms are decorated nicely. One of the rooms is fairly formal. That's where the 6Ts are. If I were buying audio gear right now, at prices commensurate with the prices of the gear I have now, I would actively seek out gear that was attractive and fit the room it would go in. And there is plenty of high end audio gear with superb industrial design that borders on the artistic.
There is also a ton of audio gear out there that seems to have been designed to look simply industrial. Others it seems are designed to assault the eyes. Some of those enormous Wilson speakers come to mind.
