Ugly vs Gogeous speakers

B&W polarize. I like the 802 looks. I had a pair at one time. I also had a pair of Dahlquist DQ-10's. My wife hated the looks. They looked like cinema screens to her, hence she named them East and West.....

When I had 802 D2's there was plenty of negative feedback on looks. Martren speakers are a great combo of looks and performance.

I'm very into the aesthetics of a speaker.  There's nothing more droolworthy, gear-wise, than a beautiful speaker to me.  Of course if I don't love the sound, the looks are meaningless in terms of my buying a speaker. 

I especially love the mating of a beautiful wood finish with a contemporary (not boring box shape) design.   A pair of Thiel 2.7s in ebony I currently own certainly fits that bill.

I often go through the speaker images on Pinterest because there are many beautiful speaker designs on display.  I have to say the sky high prices of some designs may not necessarily get you better sound, but they do get you "audio jewelry" that is hard to match in cheaper speakers.

Also, I'm one of those apparently rare audiophiles who doesn't like seeing every bit of gear when I'm listening to music; a clean aesthetic allows me to more easily just concentrate on the music, vs the typical jumble of wires and amplifiers set up in a "look at me" fashion around the speakers.  I even prefer to not look at the speaker drivers (and therefore use the grills) for the cleaner look, and because when I see speaker drivers I can not help but think of the sound coming out of the drivers.  Once they are out of sight, the speakers disappear more as the transducers, to my mind.  

I'm thinking this could compare to another activity that we enjoy. If the room is extremely dark, looks just may not matter, however in a room with light, gogeous, at least in our eyes, becomes more important.

Would you buy a car if it looked like a junk yard going down the road but ran good? Of course not! Aesthetics of a speaker are important as the sound unless some one designs a speaker that sounds leaps and bounds over the competition but had mediocre looks would be ok.