I prefer fine wood finishes that are on the "darker" side. Anything lighter than walnut isn’t my favorite. Even walnut, I often wish was darker (it varies a lot). White/yellow oak is the worst offender ugh - fortunately that’s been out of fashion for years. "Black Ash" gets a bad rap from all the years of BestBuy garbage, but when done well it can be quite nice - as illustrated by the Tannoy Kensington GR-BA "Black Ash" edition. I actually like this better than the normal Walnut finish, since I think the svelte tall cabinets look much better in a darker finish.
Not particularly fond of high gloss finishes. I get that many high-end buyers want their speakers to be finished just like their expensive cars - but that’s not for me (nor the cars, either). IMO the primary purpose of a speaker is to sound awesome, but secondarily its form & function is much closer to "fine furniture" than a vehicle that goes really fast. I don’t want my speakers to look like they go fast - they should NEVER go fast lol. Would you park your car in the living room?
And of course, you might also consider the wall material under the finish. MDF is gross and hard to repair.
If you take fine woods away, then Magico’s aluminum cabinets w/ the satin M-Cast finishes look nice to me.
