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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - Audio product which really floats your boat !

Most hifi is not attractive, anything that is too big for the job is very ugly.

If I was going to go for something, it would be something cute:

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Hi fi should be heard and not seen!!
I've always been taken by the appearance of the 4040, particularly with the natural wood cover. Basically a modernized and perhaps more elegant take on the by then venerable A60. The A60 looked really dated in its final incarnation.
 
Also this was high on my want list in the past, and probably still is....

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Many Meridian electronics are true design classics. I came very close to buying this pre/power with phono input once. I liked that Boothroyd and Stuart used to sign their products with their names.
 
We can agree or disagree about the look but in terms of music pleasure and value, this one’s hard to beat.
Yes, I concur. I was exposed to the Quad IIs as a young teenager, and their aesthetic was burnt onto my retinas for ever. I can't look at them dispassionately......
 
Whenever I see a nice tidy pair of Quad IIs I always think ‘I really must buy a pair of Quad IIs’... then I remember just how much NOS KT66s cost! They are an amp I really want to own at some point, fabulous things, and I bet they’d match my Verdier pre superbly.

I have a full set of Quad valve kit. Sadly one of the IIs has a major problem with one of the transformers - leaking the mastic from inside the transformer. I was only thinking today about setting the working one up as part of a mono system. The whole set - pre amp, tuner and power amp cost me £100 about thirty years ago.
 
I have a 3 with said wood trim. Very beautiful indeed, stunning with the older dark cover; I'll never part with it willingly. It makes a wonderful aesthetic match to my teak A&R A60.

It's unfortunate that some such trimmed Regas were sold here in AO/NZ with the budget option of a Linn LVV, which required a different mounting hole position to the more expensive Grace 707 alternative (I don't think I've seen such a 3 with the R200). Unlike the Grace hole, the Linn mount means there's no upgrade potential with a Rega arm. I made very sure my plinth was drilled for a Grace arm.

Edit: I'd love to find some good small speakers to compliment the Rega 3/A60. My Heybrook HB3 S2 pair work in all ways but don't fit the space. The incumbent black Diamond 9.1s, while sounding great, are eyesores!
Rega Kytes perhaps?
 
Whenever I see a nice tidy pair of Quad IIs I always think ‘I really must buy a pair of Quad IIs’... then I remember just how much NOS KT66s cost! They are an amp I really want to own at some point, fabulous things, and I bet they’d match my Verdier pre superbly.

A friend of mine has an set of Quad II’s from the 60’s or 70’s that are still sealed in their boxes. Never been opened. No, I don’t understand it either.
 
I have a full set of Quad valve kit. Sadly one of the IIs has a major problem with one of the transformers - leaking the mastic from inside the transformer. I was only thinking today about setting the working one up as part of a mono system. The whole set - pre amp, tuner and power amp cost me £100 about thirty years ago.
I remember seeing a window full of traded in, but good condition Quad II pre and power amps being sold off in Imhoff's record and hi-fi shop in New Oxford Street in the mid 80's I think. A couple of years before they closed. Each pre and power amp was priced at £5 each. So £15 for the set. If only I had bought the lot! :(
 
I think I’d be a little wary of allowing them into the house - I’m sure one once tried to kill Captain Kirk.
They do look the sort of thing that will turn up in a Mary Shelley film, or Westinghouse Tesla and Edison race, or Doctor Who Victorian Christmas special...
 
this one, for me!

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I think it's a classic design & that's why I have two of them! I managed to get some more Troika pins so I will be able to mount my spare Troika at some point, to replace the current incumbent, the XX2MkII. I think that the Linn Troika is a classic design too; it looks so cool sitting on the end of an Aro or Ittok LVII (another classic design).
 
I have a full set of Quad valve kit. Sadly one of the IIs has a major problem with one of the transformers - leaking the mastic from inside the transformer. I was only thinking today about setting the working one up as part of a mono system. The whole set - pre amp, tuner and power amp cost me £100 about thirty years ago.

Put an original mono Troughline tuner feeding with an ESL57 singing and you will have the best mono radio in the world for classical and jazz. No rock, pop or hip hop though...
 


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