Integrating speakers into contemporary decor - can WAF ever be overcome?

@lubachl While my GF turned fiance has always been a good sport, it's always fun to start spewing audiophile jargon until the significant other either laughs or their eyes glaze over.

Enormous red flag here. If this is such a problem for them, just imagine how they'll behave when something important comes between you. Stop right now and think about it. 

“Don’t go through with the merger. She’ll become insufferable to live with as time goes by.”. 
 

Ouch. LOL!

I’ve a interior decoration situation similar to kletteri1mann’s. My wife was gracious enough to allow me one room in the house we were designing and building to house my stereo system and a largish flat screen TV. Let your wife have every other room to do with what she wants, and work in some of the same style furniture as the rest of your home in your listening room.

Of course as our entertainment room is a common area where we would watch TV together, there had to be some limits set, like not having speakers placed far out from the wall, which was more or less acceptable. Other parameters like being able to hide the amp, turntable, and other such equipment behind closed doors when not in use and cooled off is a big help.

A lot of speakers, especially higher end ones are designed without regard to aesthetics outside of their own, and with no regard to how they’d look in a setting other than something ultra-modern. This obviously does not get it with most wives and other normal people, other than speaker enclosure designers. Flat planar speakers, like some Maggies that can fit against a wall, can be designed around without being overly intrusive. Another route is to find plain box-like .speakers that do not draw attention to themselves. That’s the approach I took with my plain black Magico A3’s. They blend in somewhat with the black flat screen and black computer equipment on an adjoining desk and don’t overwhelm or draw attention to themselves too much, or away from the Colonial (Federal) style antique furniture, many books on shelves, or artwork.

I’m guessing most high end speaker designers are single and/or don’t recognize speakers are anything but a be all and end all onto themselves. Interesting thread kletter1mann. You and yours stand a good chance of a happy mutual co-existence as you’re considering her needs as well as your own, and I wish you the best of luck with moving in together.

Mike

The first order of business is to find something that you agree on looks wise. I'm surprised of no mentions for either Sonus Faber (pretty much every model) or the Focal Kanta's. 

Good luck, you're going to need it!