Your advice to speakers designers


What would it be?
I'd say - instead of building great furniture that also happens to sound good give us great sounding speakers that also happen to be acceptable furniture.
inna

"There's a lack of choice in the omni and coaxial schools of speaker design right now. You know the types of speakers which can address a large sweet spot."

Very interesting.  Thanks for the nudge in that general direction.

Duke

I rarely just sit down and listen, but usual speakers do just fine for me, though I suppose omni would do better in this respect.
If aesthetics are important then the sound will never be great.  I have no problem with people who want to listen to good looking speakers in a good looking room but if that's what you want you don't need to care too much about electronics.  You don't need to care about cables at all.  Get some good speakers that don't do anything too wrong, sit back and enjoy. 
Yeah. Besides, by definition speakers cannot look too good in a usual sense. Or electronics really. Well, some might like Rowland's shiny boxes or Absolare leather wraped cases. Not me. I like the look of Focal Utopia, some Kharmas, and Lansches with their plasma tweeter that also happens to sound great are fine too.
Gryphon amps look good, Ypsilon is not bad. Big Wavacs, oh hell, look great. Kondo sucks. Lamm fine. Pass weird.
But in any case, unless it is extraordinarily bizarre I don't care, and even if it is I will listen of course.
People here often kind of complain about their wives in relation to aesthetics of the gear. I understand. Most wives can be convinced by the performance, I believe.
If aesthetics are important then the sound will never be great.


That’s simply not the case.

First, I’ve had numerous speakers I think were aesthetically beautiful that sounded great. Further, the more expensive speakers tend to be the more beautifully built speakers with even more attention to finish and style. As is the case with most high performance luxury items. Many of the Tidal speakers, for instance, are among the most beautifully made, and are also in the top sphere of performance.

(And I also happen to like the aesthetics of the MBL speakers, which produce some of the most amazing sound I’ve ever heard).

Right now I have Thiel 2.7 speakers in ebony and they are among the most beautiful speakers I’ve ever seen, and they sound superb. So do my bigger 3.7s.

A friend of mine reviews audio gear and often has crazy expensive gear and cabling. His set up is more of a "reviewer" set up in terms of aesthetics - equipment all around. I prefer most equipment to be out of sight, except the speakers, hence all my cabling is mostly hidden, source gear in another room. Yet my system usually sounds more impressive than his, because I put my money into my speakers (and not cables) and especially because I had the room professionally designed for good acoustics, with a high priority for aesthetics so you don’t see the treatments.

There is nothing about high end audio that bars beautiful industrial design as part of the process. And there’s quite a bit of it in the high end.