Ugly vs Gogeous speakers

When I retired my Dahlquist DQ10s and replaced them with a pair of ML reQuests, my friend said: "I like these new ones - I thought those other speakers were ugly as sin."

An amusing statement coming from a guy that doesn't have a single piece of matching furniture in his home, let alone a decorating scheme.

Different strokes, I 'spose.  ;-)

While I certainly like the speakers, like Sonus, that are fine furniture as well as sound reproducers, the question that always comes to mind is whether an audiophile with limited means (whether having a budget of $1,000 or $100,000) wishes to spend money on sound, appearance, or both, with the corollary that anything significant given to appearance usually means less spent on performance.

I’ve had odd looking speakers - the Spica Angelus looked rather like a couple of nuns staring at you - but I admired Vandersteen’s approach - put the maximum effort into performance and then wrap a sock over it so it looks at least acceptable, albeit a bit reminiscent of the monoliths in 2001 A Space Odyssey.

I have large Wilsons that do look a bit like something out of the Alien movies, and I made the mistake of sticking the grilles on them just as a way of keeping them safe while I was setting up the room (never do this - convincing a wife that they have to come off for listening is very difficult once she knows they have grilles!)

I guess there is a balance between aesthetics and sound, but I come down on the sound side. But if someone abandoned a pair of Sonus on my doorstep, I wouldn’t hesitate to haul them inside!

I've read most of your comments with an open mind.  I realize that beauty is somewhat subjective.  Most people can agree on a pretty woman, beautiful home, nice car, etc, but speakers seem to be not in any of those categories.  
For me, I have always enjoyed (much like cars and women) really nice curves.  If you look at some of the most coveted cars in the world, Shelby cobras, Porsche 911, audi R8, they are well rounded.  So for me, I like the 802 D3s. Really nice curves.

But I also own three of them. 

I am just not into anything I can potentially build in my garage in an afternoon with a table saw and jig.  Not to say I don't appreciate those other speakers, (which I do) I just like something with a little more sex appeal.  

 Beauty certainly is in the eye of the beholder.  James mentioned someone's wife dry-heaving over the look of the MBLs.
The MBLs have always been divisive: as an example of more "way out there" industrial design, I actually find them beautiful.

Probably the most puzzling "WAF" note I've seen was in the Soundstage review of the Joseph Audio Pulsar speakers.  The reviewer swooned over their sound, but could not keep them because apparently his wife hated their looks so much she put her foot down on his ever buying them.  The Pulsars are about as normal-looking a monitor as there is, and even with some nice contemporary lines.  How someone could hate their looks so much truly baffles me (and that line of Joseph speakers usually gets kudos for their good looks).

wspohn mentions the "mistake" of putting grills on the Wilsons.  I'm with his wife on this one: I generally don't care to see the speaker drivers.  While *some* designs do have beautiful looking drivers, most look drab or industrial.  The Wilsons are IMO a perfect example of this: there is nothing pretty about their drivers, and they exhibit one of my pet peeves: the very visible silver screw heads around the drivers.   I get this can make it easy to place and swap the drivers...but jeeze...go the extra yard to make it look nice. You don't see screw heads sticking out of walls and nice furniture for a reason; why anyone wants to look at those, like some unfinished shop project, on their super expensive speakers is a mystery to me.

Both aesthetics and sound are a personal choice for anyone buying a pair of speakers.  That being said, the Lawrence Audio line of speakers not only looks very different and aesthetically pleasing but they are extremely neutral sounding with tight bass, gorgeous mid-range, and extended sweet sounding high-end. Look at some pics on my website at eastendhifi.com