I agree that on first blush the post seemed silly and yet it grows upon one with further thought. Anyone who reads my posts would notice that for some weird reason I am hung up on the divergent personalities that make up the staff of Stereophile. I can’t help it. The OP referred to the aesthetics of the equipment but how do you divorce the gear from the room?
So with that in mind I think of Mike Fremer’s $1m+ system (maybe closer to $2M?) and I don’t care how great it likely sounds, I would not care to spend time in his cramped cluttered rat’s nest of a basement listening room. His CH Precision and darTZEEL, and Ypsilon components are beautiful but his beloved SAT table and arm are ugly to my eyes and so are his robot-looking Wilson monstrosities-even worse in his cramped setting. I would sooner have the same gear in plain black boxes (his electronics, forgetting the Wilsons) in a nicer, cleaner room than his set-up.
For better or worse, over the 45 years I have been into audio I have migrated toward craftsmanship and appearances combined with great sound. My highly modified and hot-rodded Thorens TD124 and Garrard 301 feature Reed 3P arms that to my eye are works of art and engineering and both sit on Layers of Beauty/Russ Collinson plinths that are not likely to be duplicated (at least by Russ) anytime soon. Both will endure for as long as this planet remains habitable in all likelihood. They will certainly get passed along to my two sons and be enjoyed by them, which is meaningful since my Thorens was purchased new by my father on a business trip to NYC in 1959.
I selected the two sets of loudspeakers I rotate in and out of my dedicated listening room because they not only sound good to me, in my system, but because the enclosures are built in-house with painstaking care, Devore O/93’s and Spendor D7.2’s. My electronics, an SW1X DAC III Balanced, a Manley Steelhead, an ARC Ref 6 and Ref 180S are all built completely by hand. I suppose my Aurender W20 is not. Maybe that is why the Aurender is hidden from view on my rack, one of three Symposiums that are also made with great care and though not beautiful by any means, are not as ugly as many rack systems.
I have relaxed in the same Ekornes listening chair for the better part of 23 years now and it still looks as nice as the day I bought it.
Don’t get me wrong, my listening room is relatively small, my system is relatively modest, and I don’t claim to have anything close to a super-system or room.
