Why are modern arms so ugly?


OK.......you're going to say it's subjective and you really looove the look of modern tonearms?
But the great tonearms of the Golden Age are genuinely beautiful in the way that most Ferraris are generally agreed to be beautiful.
Look at the Fidelity Research FR-64s and FR-66s? Look at the SAEC 308 series and the SAEC 407/23? Look at the Micro Seiki MA-505? Even the still audacious Dynavector DV-505/507?
But as an architect who's lifetime has revolved around aesthetics.......I am genuinely offended by the design of most modern arms. And don't give me the old chestnut....'Form follows Function' as a rational for ugliness. These current 'monsters' will never become 'Classics' no matter how many 'rave reviews' they might temporarily assemble.
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Take the Graham series of unipivots.......a theory of design suited to elegance.
What Bob Graham delivers is something akin to an exhibit at a proctologists' convention. The only saving grace is that it is manufactured in matt black to disguise its clumsy proportions.
And then there's the Triplanar.......something the Soviets would launch against some Balkan uprising.
And this fashionable separation of VTA tower and arm is responsible for a whole brood of monsters.
Even the Reed (sorry Nandric) and its separated-at-birth twin the Talea show the inability of designers to come to terms with the consequences of this solution.
And then comes the latest horror.....the Kuzma 4 Point......the sister that even Quasimodo's family tried to hide.
Look at the Continuum Cobra as the exception that displays a design excellence in solving the very same conceptual problem?
So there are a lonely few modern arm designs still able to deliver innovation with beauty.
The Continuum Copperhead and DaVinci 12" Grandezza stand apart.
But God help us if our 'classic' tonearms of the future are to be selected from the current hapless choices?
Remember........classics are always beautiful.
Seriously, When the music drifts one to another place and time with eyes closed... does it matter?
I happen to have the Grandezza 12".
The Continuum Cobra has it's own league.