I'm sorry but the TL12 does absolutely look like a piece of lab gear. Likewise the TD 124 looks like a gas cooker. I love them both but neither is beautiful. My favourite, Quad, was described by an ex girlfriend of mine to a mutual friend as "it sounds great, but it looks like it came out of a science lab...and he plays it so LOUD!".The best audio is both. I’ll cite a couple of examples from my own kit:
Thorens TD-124. Introduced in the late-50s and has every feature you could possibly want for playing records: all four speeds, pitch adjustment, strobe, a clutch for easy record changing/broadcast fast start, a built-in adapter for ‘dinked’ 45s (it just pops up), a built in spirit level for levelling along with easy to adjust levelling edge-wheels, arm board removable from above so you can swap arms in five minutes tops (assuming you have the next arm ready mounted on another board).
The SME arm is just as radical. That is the point easy tracking weight adjustment, bias, VTA, azimuth etc all came together with coherent design and did so in a beautiful timeless way that still looks modern (the original Series I was introduced in 1959, the one on the deck is from the late ‘60s).
Form, function, ergonomics. Everything is there for a reason, yet it is pulled off with the form and grace of a Henry Moore sculpture. It astonishes me how much we have forgotten since this time. So many modern decks are just horrible ergonomically IMO.
I’ll go back to the Leak TL12 Plus I mentioned upthread. It is a mono valve amp. Everything that it needs to function as a mono valve amp is out on display in a totally honest, yet aesthetically pleasing manner. Mains and output transformers, smoothing capacitor and valves along with an input socket. 100% form dictated by function, yet it doesn’t look like a piece of lab gear.
The underside is an object lesson in good logical electronic layout and long-term serviceability. It comes with a schematic in the manual and is the very definition of ‘Right To Repair’. This is exactly what good design looks like. I can’t imagine much if any of today’s kit will be serviceable in 60+ years, let alone as desirable as either of these items!
Name a 'beautiful' amplifier.
- Thread starter Rockmeister
- Start date
Wow. Yes, that's lovely . But it's hardly a modern design.I have to say I find the Radford SC22/STA15 rather beautiful too. But then I think this is the most beautiful car ever made, so I’m obviously way out of my depth in the 21st century!
James
Lord of the Erg\o/s
Harsh, but probably fair.
I'm surprised no one listed the LP12 as a beautiful thing. No wait, it's not an amplifier...
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
Ah, hadn’t realised ‘modern’ was a necessary part of the remit. Sorry. But I think the TD124 is beautiful too (and the TD125.) Maybe I’ve just got a penchant for kitchen equipment.
Oh bugger off. It's a black box!Exposure 15, form, function with two tape outputs. Beautiful inside and out.
Well, it is. Otherwise we would never move on past the Mone Lisa.
John
Rack’em Up!
Beats a lot of the gaudy stuff that dominates this thread!
Tony L
Administrator
The problem is home audio is an long established and mature technology. All the really innovative stuff was done decades ago and in most respects the aesthetics and ergonomics have long been nailed down. Things like the TD-124 and LP12 are the Stratocaster and Les Paul of it. Some modern guitars may be good, e.g. Strandberg, the Ibanez Jem or whatever, but most folk still want the Strats and Les Pauls even now 60+ years on. Sadly most modern hi-fi isn’t even good. It just fails on the most basic form, function and ergonomics terms. Going crazy with a CNC machine and a bag of dazzlingly bright blue lights isn’t moving anything forward in any real sense. With any genuinely good design you never have to ask “why is that like that?”. It is just obvious as form, function and ergonomics merge seamlessly. I’ve actually left some rooms in hi-fi shows laughing as the grasp of design language is so bad!
Wilson
SCTV half wit
Black Boxes Matter!
foxwelljsly
Me too, I ate one sour too.
As black boxes go, that Linn Form Factor is as good as it gets. The Kairn/Lk140 combo is still a classic combo in my book for passive speakers, too.Black boxes can be done right, these will never age in my opinion!
gingermrkettle
Deep vein trombonist
Last seen being flipped out of the arena on Robot Wars.
Metaxas power amp. The rest of the range is equally bonkers.
Anyway, this?
This is true, but lots of domestic items are mature technology. Kitchen tools, is your kettle a 1965 model? Domestic lighting. Dining tables and chairs. Vacuum cleaners. Now you may still prefer a Kirby vacuum, but other attractive designs exist. Dare I say that this is because women choose them? The ergonomics work too. So form follows function does not mean that we have to stop at the Thorens 124. A Linn works too, so does a Michell.
Modern design doesn't have to be bad design. Only bad design is bad design. Nobody wants to go back to a badly designed 1950s kitchen, and there were plenty of those.
Tony L
Administrator
No, but my toaster (a Dualit 4-slice) is! My Sabatier kitchen knife is likely a far older design. I have never been happy with modern kettles having chucked a surprisingly large amount of plastic crap in landfill over the years. I’m not quite ready to opt for a classic all-metal stove-top design, but I’ll certainly thinking about it when the current one (also a Dualit) fails.
PS I have a Miele C3 Dog & Cat, it is a superb vacuum cleaner, but attractive design? Not to my eyes. Just a rounded-off shapeless red and black blob like every other vacuum. Same with cars, I know people who struggle to find their shapeless generic hatchback in the supermarket carpark as so many modern cars are just so devoid of visual cues. No one could possibly confuse a Ford Anglia with a Morris Minor or Mini as they actually had design identity. I’m not for a second implying they are as good, economical or reliable cars as modern ones, just that design has totally jumped the shark. My guess is its all ‘design by committee’ rather than one person’s clear vision. Same in so many walks of life.
Cereal Killer
432
No matter what, time stands still for no one.
Design absolutely has not jumped the shark. You may not like modern designs, I'm sure that 60 years ago there were people bemoaning the Moggy Minor and Anglia and wanting a return to the flowing wings of the 30s, but design and innovation there is. Form still follows function in car design, to be honest better than it ever did, the evidence being better internal accomodation, lower drag, etc. If that leads to a bland design, well that's the way of things. A fighter jet is a particular shape because that's what works, and they do all end up looking the same.
Your Miele vacuum sells alongside a Kirby that hasn't been redesigned since 1960-whenever. You may not find it attractive, but most of the consumers must, otherwise they wouldn't choose it.
Space is the Place
pfm Member
Perhaps not beautiful but interesting, Pre Ives Jelly iMac?
I also like Graham's Tron Amps, they are fairly plain and understated on the outside, imagine if you didn't know much about them and your took the lid off to find this?!
Beauty on the inside...I think i was an amp builder i'd give up after seeing this!
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
As a fairly long term Albarry lover, and user, I do think the form and colour is beautiful, but I always thought the graphics let the side down ever so slightly.
Perhaps not beautiful but interesting, Pre Ives Jelly iMac?
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
I still haven’t grasped why an old valve amp that looks like a 50s fridge is by definition inherently less well designed than a modern one that looks like a raygun from a 2021 sci-fi movie, if they contain pretty much the same complement of transformers, caps and resistors inside and the case is the only distinguishable difference.