Hi Prof, I know Livio and his team are responsible for the aesthetics of the new McIntosh XRT Reference speakers. Re the sound quality, I believe Paolo and his team might be involved but I'm not entirely sure. However, as Livio indicated, part of the design process is to recognize the history and tradition of each brand. The top McIntosh speakers have long been line source designs with subwoofer/bass augmentation, which almost always sound different to point source. As for subjective observations, I do prefer the Sonus faber sound compared to McIntosh's re speakers, but then many of my clients would also disagree.