Most beautiful speakers in the world ?

[batfunk]

I have a full 5.1 midnight cherry prestige setup. What'd you say? Reflections? Who cares!

 

[Trouble Maker]

One thing that's evident going through this thread, beauty really is in the eye of the beholder!

I read this and thought 'At least no one posted studio monitors à la Genelec, or Neuman.'
But then I realized I hadn't read the whole thread....
It only took at a bit into the second page for someone to post them.
I'm all for beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but I can't get past my personal bias in thinking there's something broken with someones economic value system to think these things are beautiful.

 

[batfunk]

Yeah, we have finally a thread where you can post about bad speakers without being laughing at and some people succeed in screwing it... Shame on you!

 

[strummr]

No Kef Blades? How about YG Sonjas?

 

[Trouble Maker]

View attachment 90655

I think that these look really great. But it's also funny they always show them from that angle and not the other side. That side is definitely their good side.

 

[highender]

Wilson Benesch Vertex

 

[Pearljam5000]

 

[LearningToSmile]

Avantgarde Zero is a seriously stylish and anti-kitsch slab of a loudspeaker. It could have been designed by Braun.

For a modern aesthetic this is hard to beat for me as well. I like wide speakers, I like integrated horns/waveguides, the only I'd change is lose the cloth grille. In a sort of similar aesthetic but with a bit less elegance, I also love the look of some open Pure Audio Project open baffle designs, from the duo:

Through the trio(probably the sweet spot for me):

All the way to the Quintets:

 

[MattHooper]

View attachment 90946

Nope.

Nopetty nope, nope, nope!

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but they fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

I know people who think that speakers, no matter how elaborate the woodworking and design, are just plain ugly and have no place in a home. Honestly, I tend to agree - speakers, along with TVs are things which just look wrong in a home setting and destroy whatever furnishing has been done. Old time console radios looked somewhat better since they didn't scream tech as much when one entered the room. However in a dedicated listening / AV room, knock yourself out!

 

[Trouble Maker]

Nope.

Nopetty nope, nope, nope!

People: Put studio monitors in your house.

Me:

 

[richard12511]

Top tier for me would probably be

High end Sonus Faber, Salk towers, Genelec Ones, High End Focal, and B&W 800 droids. Hard to pick an order, but those are among the best looking, to me. Also really like the look of the D&D, though I can't say the same for Kii for some reason(too shiny?). Also really like the look of Vivid's speakers, though I recognize they're probably over the top for some.

 

[richard12511]

View attachment 90946

Love the look of the midrange domes, and the waveguides are beautiful.

 

[MattHooper]

I know people who think that speakers, no matter how elaborate the woodworking and design, are just plain ugly and have no place in a home. Honestly, I tend to agree - speakers, along with TVs are things which just look wrong in a home setting and destroy whatever furnishing has been done. Old time console radios looked somewhat better since they didn't scream tech as much when one entered the room. However in a dedicated listening / AV room, knock yourself out!

I agree and disagree. Many speakers are homely, cheap and techy-looking. But a beautiful speaker can look great in the home and even enhance a room, IMO. (My current speakers are probably the nicest wood finished object in our entire house!).

As an inveterate audio and videophile who also cares about aesthetics, I've done my best to fit together that rubik's cube of concerns. My listening room has always been the front "living room" of the house. That's the room that is usually done up in a way for guests, but no one actually uses (where much of the living ends up in the kitchen, family room, or whatever). So I adopted it for my listening room early on.

Given most audio components, at least the ones I liked, tended to be black and brown (e.g. speakers), I did the room in black/brown/cream scheme and it really worked out. Most components and speakers seemed to look at home in the room. (Got lots of compliments on the room).

But then I made it much harder on myself. I got bitten by the projection-bug for home theater. The only room I could use was this front listening room. Yet I was a "perfectionist" when it came to video, so I wanted a room that would do high performance projected images, which means a very non-reflective room (dark walls/ceiling/floors etc). Yet this was the front room of our house! With nice bay windows. I wanted it to be bright and cheery too!

It took a year of design choices but I ended up with exactly what I wanted - a room that was open and bright for daily use, but which could transform in to a high performance home theater in minutes (hidden projector, pulling hidden curtains etc).

Then I made it even TOUGHER on myself as I got back in to 2 channel listening with a vengeance and wanted to keep 2 channel system separate from the home theater system. Yet again: I only had this one room. So I have ended up having to make a certain level of aesthetic and ergonomic compromise, where the room houses both the surround speaker system for home theater AND a separate pair of speakers for 2 channel listening.

But I kept it as clean as possible - no visible cables, only the speakers in the room, all source/amplification gear in a separate room. So it still looks clean and not cluttered to my eye. And when I sit down to listen to 2 channel I never get tired of looking at what to me are gorgeously finished and designed speakers that enhance the experience, rather than detract.

IMO, of course.

My wife has always thought speakers are better left unseen, and TVs ought to be placed behind potted plants. But even she ended up being very happy with the aesthetics of the room, even the speakers, thankfully.

 

[Trouble Maker]

@MattHooper pictures please!

 

[Sal1950]

I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but they fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.

I tend to like the looks of most loudspeakers. Only exception is probably the "vintage" look(Klipsch Heritage, old JBL, etc.).

That's the look of serious muscle, you need to learn appreciation for what they can accomplish.
My JBL HDI-3600 are beautiful to me.

 

[Count Arthur]

I really liked these Jamo speakers:

 

[Geert]

Elipson Planet L. Ask your wife, she'll confirm. (By the way, these speakers are really good sounding).

 

[MattHooper]

@MattHooper pictures please!

Ok, sure. Here you go.

The first pictures show my Thiel 2.7 speakers set up (in ebony) in the home theater/listening/living room.

You can see the projection screen to the right of the images. The screen is very large, almost the size of the entire wall, however it uses a 4-way automated masking system that changes the image shape depending on the aspect ratio of the movie (e.g. widescreen, regular, or old 4:3 shape), and can change the size of the image as desired. So the screen wall is surrounded in black velvet. To make the home theater speakers blend in (I use Hales Transcendence L/C/R speakers), I had custom black velvet covers made for each, and their stands. So they visually tend to blend in with the screen wall, and completely disappear with the lights out, so all you see is the image, no technology. I made the first few feet under the screen black velvet as well, to give a sort of "stage" effect that the L/C/R speakers are placed. To me this gives a more cohesive, deliberate look to the screen area, rather than the "speakers placed randomly on the floor around the screen" vibe. Plus it makes the speakers disappear even more, visually.

The room is done in a dark brown scheme for the rug, sofa. And the ceiling was a special design: we built a drop down area for most of the ceiling that not only holds the room lighting, but conceals a bunch of acoustic treatment (done with an acoustician). That drop down ceiling is actually stretched dark brown fabric, even though it looks like a solid ceiling. Dark fabric is better than almost any dark paint for rejecting light reflections, due to the structure of the fabric catching stray light (I didn't want light bouncing from the ceiling back on to the screen to wash out the image).

Thick brown velvet curtains are draped in the room corners to the side of the screen, for nice aesthetics. But in fact they hide behind them thinner black velvet, acoustically-transparent curtains, which can be pulled out along every wall surface in seconds. So I can have my light, cheery wall color for day and hanging out, but turn the room in to a "black box" for watching movies where the room completely disappears. It's very transporting and immersive!

Finally, there's surround speakers on the side and back walls, and the projector itself is hidden behind the big sofa. It's on a telescoping lift that, on command, lifts the projector up over 6 feet high for projecting moves, and then it sinks back down hidden behind the sofa again when powered down.

Originally my old listening sofa was against where the projection screen wall is now, facing the bay windows, with speakers set up near the bay windows, which made aesthetic and ergonomic sense. I had to switch the seating 180 degrees in order to use that wall for the projection screen, making placing of my 2 channel speakers more challenging (can't block the room opening, so limited position options). Fortunately I'm ok with the compromise, still like the looks, and the sound has been great. I like speakers pulled well out from the back walls in any case.

Also, one of the things I like about the shag rug is that the speaker cables are completely buried, so they become invisible. (I don't like seeing cables).

This is with the Thiels replaced by my Joseph Audio Perspective speakers (I switch between the two sets of speakers as I feel like it):

 

[gr-e]