Do you care about the LOOK???

Matty, your preamp wears "cat eye" glasses ?

preamp girl

Looks are important, but, as Sharon Stone so aptly put it, "You can only f++k your way to the middle!"

My wife does,which is why the electonics are in a nice looking cabinet with hinged doors.

My spouse and I are firmly in the camp of "only the sonics matter," not the appearance. While we appreciate beauty of exterior design, after being seduced down that path once early on in our my journey, we've dropped appearance from consideration...

My particular lust, around 1972, was for the drop dead gorgeous linear tracking, belt driven, B&O Beogram 4000 turntable. Boy, talk about being blinded by the beauty of design – to me this turntable was a piece of sculpture worthy to grace any art gallery (and it did find its way to the Museum of Modern Art, I believe). But, this little mis-adventure also taught me a big time lesson about sonics versus styling. I gratified my yearning for the visual aesthetics with the purchase of one of these jewels in 1974 (the model 4002 by then), but when I traded up to an early VPI turntable a few years later, I became a much happier music listener. (The one thing that did stick with me is a love for linear tracking tonearms.) I’ve never since considered the appearance of a piece of audio gear in the purchase equation, just the sonics.
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I agree with Albertporter, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, it does matter how the stuff looks, especially in the case of a system in the living room, as opposed to a system in a dedicated HT room. I tend to like solid, well-built but functional looking gear without a lot of "bells and whistles," and I think some manufacturers go too far trying to present a "statement" look. Sort of like the PT Cruiser, the novelty can wear off over time.