Why are modern arms so ugly?

Halcro,
I dont think we are that far apart. One of the debates I have been having with myself for 20 yrs in terms of tonearms is the adjustability and ease of setting up accurately vs the added complexity in the arm with the subsequent tradeoffs in rigidity and energy dispersion. The Triplanar is a good talking point - does the gain in accurate setup outweigh the disadvantages of added complexity. Back in the old days the more you removed from the arm the better they sounded eg tonearm lifts etc. For VTA adjustments we made metal blocks with set screws such that we knew 1/4 turn = 1/1000th inch.
We would slip these under the arm lift or whatever was available hanging off the pillar - gave us repeatable, measurable VTA adjustment, and you just remove the block when done.
If I were to redesign the ARO I would either thread the arm pillar and mounting board and eliminate the silly alan nut that holds the pillar ( weak point of many arms I believe ) or put a VTA threaded needle under the arm pillar with a teflon tip so there is minimal additional points of contact, or you can disengage the VTA adjustment contact points when done.

Does anybody regard the Breuer or Brinkmann or Raven as beautifully designed tonearms? They look very simple (lookings only of course), a bit Bauhaus design like.

best @ fun only

Well the Breuer and Brinkmann are not modern arms....but I don't find them particularly elegant.
The Raven pushes no boundaries and is rather pedestrian looking.
I much prefer the looks of the Shroeder arms in terms of their proportions and clarity of purpose.
Of the modern arms, some of the 12" upper Reed models are not so bad.
Happy Nandric? :^)

Speak for yourself.

Dear Halcro, Thuchan is already making my life difficult
with even threefold teasing in a single post. You obviously like to join him. Vidmantas , the designer/owner of the Reed, is a good friend of my but this is not, uh,
a sufficient condition to admire his tonearms in aesthetical sense. To be honest my position is that an tonearm needs to satisfy some other conditions first. As I
stated before I never thought about tonearms in aesthetical
context. But the FR-64S awaked in me this 'wondering' which
I called, by lack of the right vocabulary, 'mechanical beauty'. Now the lack of vocabulary in this whole thread is an obvious indication that the most of us are not 'aestheticaly educated'. No wonder than that we use 'old predicates' or expressions to describe the 'new objects of art'. To me this paradox is obvious. Ie 'old'
and 'new' are (pre) supposed to be different. But you obviously enjoy this 'field' of knowledge because you must feel in this domain like a king. You should however not extend this feeling to the domain of turntables and carts. There are boundaries , you know, even for the architects.

Regards,