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Name a 'beautiful' amplifier.

try googlin 'steampunk valve amps', images.

Lovely stuff

If you like copper pipe. Could look ok in an Edwardian basement kitchen?

Yeah, one reason I enjoy the look of exposed valve equipment is the steampunk/retro-future feel I get from them. Some great looking contraptions come up in the search you suggest.

That might be an age thing - being born in the late 70s, valves weren’t really a thing any more when I was growing up, at least not that I remember. So there’s an arcane exotic quality to them that might not carry for people a bit older who remember them more clearly from the first time around.

But, contrary to some, I think valves on show is the way to go. I think a Jinro would be my ideal, along with a Gyrodec on similar aesthetic grounds (I don’t even own much vinyl, but would still love one almost as a sculpture).

That’s one reason, even if it is a bit superficial, why I’m keen on my own current amp, too. In fact, why not have a picture...

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My VERY pretty girlfriend described my pair of Leak TL12.1's
standing side by side, up and running in a dim room as looking like city lights.

She did like the blue light emissions display caused by a bit of a soft quartet of Marconi / Osram KT66s.
 
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My VERY pretty girlfriend described my pair of Leak TL12.1's
standing side by side, up and running in a dim room as looking like city lights.

She did like the blue light emissions display caused by a bit of a soft quartet of Marconi / Osram KT66s.

She is clearly more understanding and laid back than most.
 
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Heard a nicely restored pair of TL12.1s a few months back, in a system I know very well.

They are very, very good indeed. Rediculously so, if you factor in the age!
 
Hell, I'd buy a pair of the empty boxes just for the look of the things :)

Remind me of something you'd see on the Nostromo, or on the set of BladeRunner somewhere.

many years ago, almost in another life when I worked in HiFi retail, I visited the flat of a well known reviewer and he had a set unused, weighing down his speakers.
 
A better picture, of what I believe to be the perfect balance of technology and simplicity

39K USD for a class-D amplifier!!! Looks pretty, but for that price I expect more than just good aesthetics.

Well, I suppose the thread is about good looking amplifiers............
 
Its is a lot more that just an amplifier though, its also a modular preamp, DAC and RIAA MM/MC phonostage. The Class D (Pascal M-PRO2) module is obviously the poweramp section and has a very specific implementation.
 
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It does look rather like a slide projector though :D

I can't think of a single amplifier that I would call beautiful (and none of the pics so far have helped), though there are a few that are definitely stylish.
 
To be fair, it was, in retrospect, a daft title. I can't think of many industrial design objects that are actually beautiful. B&O and Apple have certainly produced some real elegance and I can think of chairs and etc that qualify...

I did see this which at least elegant in it's way (and almost certainly a triumph of form over function) :) Dieter Rams Braun music center https://www.moma.org/collection/works/2649.

Also quite like the look of the Ruark R7 'radiogram', tho it's not a coherent as D.R's Braun.

If I were starting out I think I'd reduce the on box controls to a bare minimum, and put everything onto a remote. In that way you have a fairly clean sheet with the box. It might be a laugh to try and sketch something out. Anyone got a pencil and paper to have a go?
Dig out those crayons you once used!
 
If I were starting out I think I'd reduce the on box controls to a bare minimum, and put everything onto a remote. In that way you have a fairly clean sheet with the box. It might be a laugh to try and sketch something out. Anyone got a pencil and paper to have a go?
Dig out those crayons you once used!

I'd go the other way. Some of my favorite items (B&O, old Sansui) appeal to me in a large part because of how it is to interact with the item -- not how it looks sitting on a shelf in the room. If everything is done by remote then you might as well have it in another room or in a cabinet. If it's a beauty to behold then make it interactive!

That's my opinion.
 
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Always liked the look of the Naim NAP 500 Head Unit.



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I wonder why the brushed grain pattern repeats on that. Maybe it's a rendering with a repeating texture? But it would annoy me, kind of like when a tile installer lays artificial wood or marble and puts two of the same identical tile next to each other. There's my OCD again!
 
Possibly, who knows what the designers might have done if the brushed grain wasn't showing clearly enough in the photographs?
 
We seem to have drifted from amplifiers but would I start using vinyl again, though unlikely, the simplicity, 'elegance' and low profile of a Rega would likely be the most appealing option.

Those huge metal sculptures would give me nightmares.
 
I like their amp with the "Left Eye", "Right Eye", and "Power Nose".
Haha, yep, that’s good humour, which to me says that they enjoy what they’re doing... not usually a bad thing for a low volume manufacturer!
 


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