Ugly vs Gogeous speakers

Looks shmooks ... while I think most of my gear is beautiful to the eye, if I could replace my speakers with a pair of paper plates and amplifiers with a pair of potatoes while retaining the audio quality I'd sell my gear, replace it from grocery store items, and spend the savings on music.

Given what is available in today’s market, it is not necessary to compromise on sound or aesthetics - especially speakers that are available in different finished or woods. The advantage of competition. The exceptions are electrostatics or large (or multiple box) speakers or those requiring positioning that dominate the room. 

I would choose sound over looks 95% of the time but it’s not hard to have both. Mine are Paradigm Studio 100 V5’s in the cherry wood finish. A very good looking speaker as long as the grills are attached. Without, they are ugly. Brands that make the prettiest speakers are Sonus Faber and Salk. Jim makes gorgeous speakers. 

I used to watch an HDTV show where on one episode she designed a room around a bright gold grand piano(family heirloom).Quite challenging,but it looked really nice.On another episode the owner had some large Martin Logans that he was going to leave in the room.The designer and his wife banished them to another section of the house and they went for tiny in - wall speakers.So the garish piano can be incorporated but not the speakers?Silliness!

I get that many audiophile don't care what their speakers/gear looks like, it's all about the sound.

That explains the look of many audiophile dens (and...maybe...many audiophiles)....;-)

"Decorators" pretty much NEVER incorporate speakers into room design, other than the ceiling mounted stuff that high end houses always seem to have. I like design as simply a minor interest, and thumb through Architectural Digest noting basically zero audio components anywhere...maybe a speaker shows up once in a decade...I think it's funny when speaker manufacturer's advertisements show their stuff set up near windows with a lovely view, with no speaker cables, and no regard to why it would be sitting in the middle of some spectacular room...lame, but I get it. "Hey Marge, you mind if I stick these yellow WiIsons under the Matisse?" I found  the Heresy IIIs to be relatively unobtrusive due to their short stature excepting their fatness, and they allow me to see my tube amps and other items more readily from my listening spot which allows me to stop those pesky tube explosions from destroying my house.

I don't care what speakers look like, I just want to love how they sound. Having a dedicated room allows for that. When I listen it's with eyes closed, always. Focused, critical listening. Just me, sometimes also a friend. Saturday mornings for a couple of hours.
The living room and master bedroom systems have speakers that my wife likes the looks of and we both agree sound just fine. Those are for movies or background music.

I wonder if anybody has ever hired a decorator to help blend in fabulous sounding butt ugly speakers to a room?

Life is too short for ugly speakers.

Very true. Even if I won the lottery I wouldn’t have Wilson speakers no matter how they sounded. Sonus Faber, maybe. Rockport Avior, definitely. Tannoy Kensington GR, why not!

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0177/0142/files/Kensington-GR-2C6BF934-Grille-Off-Walnut-Fisheye_l...

My Quad ESL57s without grilles look awful. Fortunately, they sound most excellent. See Virtual Sys.

My list of good looking speakers that I had at one time or another...

-Monitor Audio Gold GX50’s in Bubinga Rosewood, book matched
-Paradigm studio 60 V5 in rosewood
-Paradigm Signature S2 V.3 in piano black
-Kef LS50’s in Piano Black / Rosegold
-Kef LS50’s in Piano Black / Blue
-Kef Qx5’s in Graphite 
-Kef Qx5’s in Piano Black
-Dynaudio Xeo 6 in matte white
-Jamo Concert 11
and quite a few others that Im sure I’m forgetting!

I love the look of mbl systems, triangle art, focal, b&w, kef, magico and a ton of other high end manufactures.  

I like the exotic woods, shiny metallic paint, gloss white / black, matte colors. I like attention to detail and high build quality and sometimes you can’t really appreciate that sort of thing except for up close and in person!  Big horn systems are pretty damn impressive looking as well.

Tannoy Definition 10T in cherry,  they ended my speaker merry go round, with both looks and sound.

B&W 800 Matrix. I remember looking and reading about them in stereophile when they first came out. I was in awe back then. I used to look at the pics and dream of owning them one day. Today they are now in my room and love looking at them and the sound is amazing. Don’t know what I like better the sound or their looks. 😂

Look like Goldmund.  Super expensive!

Careful what you ask for:  I bought a pair of racing red KEF LS50s for the living room.  My wife loves their appearance so much she wont consider replacing them with KEF Reference 1s.

I'll buy for sound, even if the speakers are butt ugly.  I presently own a pair of Ohm 1000's painted black.  They look good to me, but I want speakers that let me forget I'm listening to speakers and allow me to concentrate on the sound rather than the source, which the Ohms do.  You CAN get the best of both worlds, but the whole point is basically what appeals to my ears, not my eyes.

I like exotic woods liked striped ebony and at one point nearly bought a pair of Thiels just for that (and they sounded good of course).

Same here.

When I first started contemplating buying a Thiel 2.7 or 3.7 years ago someone had offered to sell me the most gorgeous looking 2.7s in ebony.  I knew they would be perfect for my room, but couldn't help be tempted by going all the way to the flagship 3.7s, so I got the 3.7s in a finish that is high quality, but not the perfect shade for my room.

Letting those original ebony 2.7s go nagged at me ever after and when a pair miraculously appeared (never seen them before or since) on Audiogon a while back I grabbed them as quick as I could.  And at a killer price!

They are among the most attractive speakers I've ever seen and are also a perfect color/aesthetic fit for my room. And fortunately I like their sound better than just about anything else I've auditioned (except they are neck-in-neck with my bigger Thiel 3.7s). So it's a win-win-win situation of having the sound I want with exactly the aesthetics I desired.

I like exotic woods liked striped ebony and at one point nearly bought a pair of Thiels just for that (and they sounded good of course). Alas, I have generally bought speakers for sound only…Vandersteen 1Bs years ago…a large sock…Silverline Preludes vinyl veneer in fake rosewood (looks more like walnut, but very resistant to damage), lots of all black stuff, rosewood Viennas. My recently acquired Heresy IIIs I yammer about were ordered as simply black, but I was sent the more pricey Capitol Edition Ebony that's sort of a dark purple with matched veneer you can't possibly see…fine with me. Note that the stock "salt and pepper" grills are prone to sagging (weird) and Klipsch offered to send a new set although they noted it's an issue with that grill fabric. I had already ordered a set of standard black grills that are sag free, and it was easy to move the Capitol badge to those since they use a rubbery sticky stuff that seems to have staying power. The black grills look great with the "purple" finish.

Have not seen for a while, but I suppose the speaker I recall that I found perhaps most visually appealing of all are Jadis Eurythmie.

http://www.monoandstereo.com/2015/01/jadis-eurythmie-special-edition-horn.html

Me like! Gotta convince wife.... Or settle for something similar but a bit toned down and more practical:

http://www.hifi-review.com/151568-jbl-studio-580.html

...also more WAF.

This one was very cool:

http://centralcal.com/ds.htm

Wife like Victorian!   Could be....

soundsrealaudio wrote:
 " When I was younger I designed and built a pair of speakers that looked like Pamela Sue Anderson. Thought I could mass produce them and they would sell like,,,well sell like Playboy magazine. I had some venture capitalists interested but all they wanted was a proto type to take home."  

These could have been big sellers if the port had been strategically located.  :-)

Heresy III very classy, nice looking, not too big box speakers on low stands. Me like! WAF very good too!

Every time I see a pic of the Lawrence Violin Speakers I think about cashing
in my Funeral funds at my Credit Union .

Oddly enough my wife thinks my Heresy III in cherry are very attractive.  

A great quote about seeing- “We see what is behind our eyes, not what is in front of them”. Us humans make up, in our minds, what is beautiful. This process is cultural, part of your own personal upbringing, and what your aesthetics, bias, attitudes, values have created. Even a “one eyed baby” is the most beautiful child in the world to it’s mother!

I most like the looks of giant metal and or wood horns like the one in my moniker.

Otherwise I like sleek and unobtrusive. I like the looks of the latest home monitor speakers from ATC for example with the magnetic metal grills.

I tend to be ambivilent towards the looks of most tower speakers. Too passe. Later generation Thiels are nice. I much prefer the looks of a good old fashioned box speaker over most towers though. Harbeth does that well. OHM Walsh is elegant in its simple and most unobtrusive  appearence.

The thing that enhances the experience for me is knowing I got the best performance for the money.  (That doesn't mean buying from someone who doesn't know what they're doing or ripping anyone off in any way.)  I like the idea that I got something that performs better than stuff that costs far more but that most people wouldn't want because of the looks or not being a recognized brand, etc. 

Imhififan

Really uggllyyy C'mon man

twm3,

I'm on the fence with the looks of the JansZen speakers (I've been interested in hearing them).   They look promising, sort of a mix of retro and modern.  It's the type of thing that would look chintzy if the build quality is average, but if the build quality is such as to have more of a premium feel I think they could be nice to look at.

I find the form factor (as well as the sound) of my Janszen Valentina Active speakers to be just gorgeous.

i've always loved the look of the wilson alexia - it's my biggest reason for wanting one :)

Sonus faber beautiful nothing else comes close!

When I approached my wife with the idea of replacing my stand mounts in the living room with floor standing models, she said "why don't you move your system down to the family room, and create your 'man cave'".  That's what I did!

As Jeff Foxworthy said, "if mama's not happy, no one's happy".

The Duevel Planets really are quite something, a simple and attractive way to fill a room with natural and near full range sound.  I think the best compliment I can give them is I don't really think about them or the system at all.  In fairness I felt the same way about the Ohm's but simply couldn't get past their looks.

I agree Tannoys can be nice, some of their Definition series is quite good to me.

Those Duevel Planets are something completely different, quite a conversation piece!

Regarding the Duevel's. What part is the burner, and what part is the oven????

My wife and I recently downsized our empty nest home to a new condo.  Our new digs are quite contemporary and the 30 year old Ohm Walsh 3's just didn't cut it looks wise.  So I decided I decided to pull the trigger on a pair of Duevel Planets in a light silver finish which complimented our decor perfectly. I read several reviews on the Planets and felt pretty confident I wasn't giving up too much on the Ohm's and with the exception of a few Hertz down low they sound very similar to the much bigger Ohm's.  As I now have a dedicated Man-Loft system (Maggies) the main great room setup is more of a "Lifestyle" system.  It's fun when guests ask "what are those" and they're mighty impressed when I spin some tunes on them. So I suppose my foray into speakers based on how they look turned out OK, on a side note these are the only speakers my wife has approved of since my Martin-Logan Aerius speakers from some 15 years ago. 

gdhal"Aesthetically speaking, "Ugly" and "Gorgeous" are in the eye of the beholder".
I agree...

IMO. The big Wilsons- ugly
The Vandersteen Quatro CT, Magico, Magnepan- beautiful
Volti Audio- http://voltiaudio.com/vittora/- very, very nice

Wolfe_g, my wife is the same.  Although when I switched from towers to standmounts in my theater, she didn't quite care for that.  Her hearing is quite sensitive, but she just doesn't care about audio whatsoever. 

I actually enjoy some of the B&W loudspeakers and I own the Nautilus 804's in a home theater setup.  For my recent 2 channel system I selected a Wilson-Benesch Vertex.  Extremely pleased with this 2-way and it isn't weird to look at.  Check them out.
Best of luck!

A used pair of 
Merlin VSM black magic
Speakers.  You will need 1 extra interconnect. Very sexy speaker.    If you have a sub sitting around 
  Its a great value. Only look at  Black magic VSM 

Certainly tastes differ, but I can't see why anyone would want a speaker whose looks they don't like in their place--any more than they'd like an ugly chair or picture. 
I personally love the understated elegance of my B/W cm9s. Rosewood and plain black grills. Slender. Lovely. But much as I love their sound, if I were going up I wouldn't listen to their 800 series, b/c I find them really ugly--like British letterboxes. 
Tidal is gorgeous--not too cheap. Raidho is slender, which I like. Wilson is blah. Magico at least has simple, clean lines. I quite like the Monitor audio pl II--and their sound is out of this world.
Aerial are well done. I'd like to see the new Paradigm Persona line in person.
And there are some European lines that are all beautiful wood--Penaudio and Arthos (something like that) I think are great.
One other issue someone might have mentioned: size and weight. I mean, having a 200 or 200+ pound thing in your living room might be a bit much unless your a really strong person. Kind of hard to move if you need to.
that's one advantage of Vivid Giya--less than 100 pounds--and only $40k!
best to all,
r 

Sorry about the empty posts above. I fell in love with the esthetics of the Legacy Focus.  I bought them in 95.  I think you might describe them as Art Deco and still love the looks and the music that flows from these beautiful 7way gems 22 years later. The new Focus do not look as good. 

My wife isn't the sort of person who would care what my speakers look like but would certainly have issues if they smelled bad. Speaker design esthetics are so all over the map it's amazing, and that's actually a good thing.

I think it could be said that some speaker designs are quite unusual in appearance.  One either likes it or hates it.  Other designs are quite conservative which equates to boring, the boxy design with a narrow width and longer depth made out of some variety of budget conscious MDF.  But at least with many of these, stains or wood grain laminates are often offered to dress it up.

I still like the curved cabinet variety, with a nice wood grain, but even that is probably seen as conservative by some.  Still, it's usually a lot harder to manufacture, or at least if your doing it to minimize standing waves and resonances.  I'm still surprised that a newish company like Tekton has paid such little attention to looks, with greens, blues and yellows as color options for a 3000+ speaker.  Hideous.