best wife friendly monitor?

Whoa.. with all due respect, I'd be carefull about calling the B&W 805 series - 'wife' friendly. I've been in showrooms and actually heard comments like, "I'll be damned if that's going in our living room", and "it looks like a miners light is staring at me".. If you chose B&W, I'd highly recommend not surprising your wife with them.. Don't think you'll get much complaint though with Dynaudios birdseye maple-sonically or esthetically .. good luck!

How about Harbeth compact 7s. They're a bit bigger than monitors but they look beautifully retro. and sound great.

In order to accomodate my wife's esthetics and the windows behind my speakers, I had Ty of www.tyleracoustics.com custom build a Linbrook three way 9"wide X 35" tall with a full grill covering the port. I sent him a picture of our cherry furniture and he matched the speaker finish to it perfectly. (see my system pictures)

Now I have some great sounding and looking speakers that meet both my wife's visual and my auditory esthetics.

Talk to Ty, he's very acomodating and his custom rates are very reasonable.

just come home with a pair of those blueroom minipods that look like little snowmen...after your wife nixes them, most monitors will be fair game with the WAF factor I assume.

dunno...just a thought.

The Sonus Faber line as mentioned above would be a good choice. Elegant cabinet work, the stands look nice too.
Another one to give consideration would be Opera.
Totems pack alot of sound in a small attractive package.
The 805s have a futuristic look that may not work with the decor.