Ugly vs Gogeous speakers

I'm very into the aesthetics of a speaker.  There's nothing more droolworthy, gear-wise, than a beautiful speaker to me.  Of course if I don't love the sound, the looks are meaningless in terms of my buying a speaker. 

I especially love the mating of a beautiful wood finish with a contemporary (not boring box shape) design.   A pair of Thiel 2.7s in ebony I currently own certainly fits that bill.

I often go through the speaker images on Pinterest because there are many beautiful speaker designs on display.  I have to say the sky high prices of some designs may not necessarily get you better sound, but they do get you "audio jewelry" that is hard to match in cheaper speakers.

Also, I'm one of those apparently rare audiophiles who doesn't like seeing every bit of gear when I'm listening to music; a clean aesthetic allows me to more easily just concentrate on the music, vs the typical jumble of wires and amplifiers set up in a "look at me" fashion around the speakers.  I even prefer to not look at the speaker drivers (and therefore use the grills) for the cleaner look, and because when I see speaker drivers I can not help but think of the sound coming out of the drivers.  Once they are out of sight, the speakers disappear more as the transducers, to my mind.  

Sound good, price is right. Who cares what they look like.

Well, some people have taste.    ;-)

I had to get rid of one of the most beautiful speakers I’ve ever had in my room - a pair of Audio Physic Scorpios in perfect room-matching ebony.
I bought them because I’ve always loved audio physic speakers, the reviews were excellent, and they were virtually my aesthetic ideal. Turned out they didn’t have quite the same tone of previous AP speakers that I craved and didn’t quite do it for me, so I sadly had to bid them farewell.

The right sound always has to be there, of course.

On the other hand, the right look to some degree as well.  For instance, though I'm quite intrigued by all the talk of Tekton, I don't think I could ever live with a pair of those things aesthetically.

BTW, imhififan, if there could ever be something truly "objectively ugly," those speakers make a great case for it.

I'm a sucker for a simple contemporary look with a beautiful wood finish, so here are some speakers I think look great:

Tidal:

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/07/ef/8c/07ef8cb965521e21e4283a62d1a7f332.jpg

Joseph Audio Perspectives (I hope to buy a pair some time):

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/39/13/52/3913522d7ac97099183530f341566d22.jpg

Though I prefer this wood finish:

https://d29pumjbf1ozmy.cloudfront.net/resize=w:700,h:470,fit:clip/rotate=deg:exif/output=quality:70/...

And I love, love, love the look of the Thiel 2.7s that I now own in the premier ebony.  They look exactly like these pictures:

http://img.usaudiomart.com/uploads/large/779895-thiel-audio-cs27-pair-in-premium-composite-ebony-msr...

I prefer grills on:

http://img.usaudiomart.com/uploads/large/779884-thiel-audio-cs27-pair-in-premium-composite-ebony-msr...

imhififan,

Horrendous.

A lot of these speakers are like a basement-dwelling engineer's attempt at making something that looks cool, but without any actual aesthetic or industrial design experience.   They just end up looking ugos!

 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.

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 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 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)....;-)