Do you care about the LOOK???

uhurit@yahoo.com, I would even take a vintage American 23 jeweled Hamilton over Rolex for that matter, and have. I grew up with a father that was a watchmaker and gunsmith. He was always working on pieces of high quality, beautiful hand made things, it was fascinating and he taught me a lot fine craftsmanship. He would work on Rolex but had little respect for it. I'm sorry but, in this case Rolex and Bose is a most apt comparison to draw I'm afraid. Happy listening!

For a while I kept a small poster of my Air Tight ATM300 on my desk. I think Air Tight's amps combine both beautiful function and looks. They really are quite jewel-like in appearance.

The Lexus coupe performs like a rather sleepy, overweight house pet. Pretty damn good looking car but I don't think Lexus has found it's design statement yet. Or, at best, they are just starting to get there with the new models.

I am willing to sacrafice a little bit on the sound quality for the look....

My first priorities are performance and build quality. If it looks good too, that's just gravy on the audio burger.

I agree that Rolex is an amazingly powerful brand, which therefore means that their watches are overrated and overpriced.

As a barometer of this situation, it is interesting to examine a really, really good fake Rolex.

I used to make it a sport to shop for the most remarkable fake Rolex from Chinatown, New York, to Hong Kong to Thailand.

The good ones are really remarkable, not only in weight and finish, but also in their accuracy, particularly compared to the "real" Rolexes.

If you really think about this, you would realize that the $50.00 "fake" watch offers at least 51%, if not 90% + of the benefits of the real Rolex, other than the hologram of authenticity or whatever other bogus, margin justifying schemes the real watch offers.

This is both a disturbing conclusion about the value of a real Rolex (although paradoxically it retains value) as well as the hypnotic power of strong brands.

Nonetheless, I cherish my "real" Rolex stainless steel Daytona.

I do realize it has a humble Zenith movement and I am sure many lesser known brands and watches have craftsmanship and artistry that would put it to shame.

But the Bose of watches? OUCH!