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Gear you love the look of

Some stuff I like the look of :-

CD players - Naim CDS2, Rega Isis, Rega Saturn R.

Turntables - Linn LP12/ Naim Aro, Rega Planar3/RB200, Planar9/RB1000, Planar3/RB330 (in red).

Amplifiers - Naim 42/110, Quad 44/405, Meridian 101/105, Nytech CTA252XDII, Rega Elicit (first version), Rega Aethos.

Loudspeakers - Naim SBL, Shahinian Compass, Rega Ela (1.5), Rega RS10, Rega Kyte (new version).







 
Based on the nominations thus far, a common theme for the popular vote is visual symmetry. I love the look of the Pioneer M-22, whose form is dictated by function.

m-22.JPG
 
I've not seen the Michell Gyro mentioned here. A beautiful piece of design, especially when stripped down to the SE version - although its far too interesting to cats to be entirely functional. Mine is convinced it is a toy designed just for her so it has to sit under a big perspex lid.

OIP.aa5TSPitQNgJXYsjjKTDSwHaFv
 
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Wharfedale 708 (1985) Great Looking speaker with fantastic sound!
Wharfedale-708-aerolam-Loudspeakers-Black-Ash-VGC.jpg

Text from What Hi-Fi
"Wharfedale was flying high in the mid-80s thanks in no small part to the success of the Diamond. At this point the company pushed hard on engineering innovation and the result was the impressive £300 708 standmounters.

The big news here was the enclosure material. Wharfedale’s chief engineer had just come over from Celestion where he did pioneering work on speaker cabinets using an aluminium honeycomb material in that company’s SL600 high-end flagship. This material’s rigidity and low mass resulted in vanishingly low levels of cabinet colouration compared to the wooden alternatives of the time. The same material couldn’t be used for Wharedale’s 708 because of their more modest selling price, so a more economical alternative had to be found. And it was.

The 708’s 28mm-thick panels were formed by sandwiching polystyrene foam between two sheets of Melamine. It worked really well from a performance point of view, giving the speakers an astonishing clean presentation for a model at their price.

Of course, having one of the best metal dome tweeters on the market helped, as did the use of a high quality loaded polypropylene mid/bass. The engineers also did away with conventional bolt fixings for the both drive units, developing a camera-lens-like screw fit into the cabinet instead. The advantage was claimed to be more even clamping pressure, and let’s not forget it looked neater thanks to the lack of visible fixings. The 708 were hugely impressive design on so many levels."

If anyone has a pair for sale let me know.
 
Much of my interest in hifi these days is about design.

I’m possibly on my own here, but my latest want is 70s Sonab. Simple, ergonomic, kind of quirky, built like a tank and perhaps look they should be in one, or almost like a jet black My First Sony...

sonab_r_4000_2-1.jpg


sonab_c_500-2.jpg


Sonab R4000-2 receiver and C 500 cassette deck.

(The above are for sale. I don’t know audioScope, but their prices for everything seem absurdly high.)
 
The more I think about it, the more I realise that apparently my aesthetic reaction to HiFi design only encompasses a spectrum ranging from dislike at worst to indifference at best. I can't think of anything that I've seen that really elicits aesthetic appreciation from me.
 
Wow to the above planars. Would like to have arty-farty prints on my Quad socks, too.
How do they sound - compared to Quad ESL-xx?
 
Alex N said:
Much of my interest in hifi these days is about design.

I’m possibly on my own here, but my latest want is 70s Sonab. Simple, ergonomic, kind of quirky, built like a tank and perhaps look they should be in one, or almost like a jet black My First Sony...

sonab_r_4000_2-1.jpg


sonab_c_500-2.jpg


Sonab R4000-2 receiver and C 500 cassette deck.

(The above are for sale. I don’t know audioScope, but their prices for everything seem absurdly high.)
Click to expand...

I love that Sonab, especially those rotaries.
Probably why I love the look of the Audiolab 8000A amp.
There was an R4000 in my local Hi-Fi shop in the late ‘70s.
I so wanted it, but couldn’t afford to buy it.
 
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