Well, one's guy's "cool" may be another guy's "ugly" (see the thread I just posted looking for nominees for "ugliest speaker"), and there are a couple of speakers in the list above that would be among my lead candidates for an "ugly" award. To me, the best speaker design is elegant, clean, and functional, and does not have an appearance that distracts the listener from its sound quality. A few of the speakers that meet my criteria include: the Vandersteen Model 5; the Avalon Eidolon Diamond; the Sonus Faber Amati Homage (superb cabinetwork) and the SF Electa Amator II; the Vienna Acoustic Mahler; the Coincident Technology Eclipse; the Wilson-Benesch ACT One (the one with the curved back); the Audio Physik Avanti III; and several of the Thiel line (not crazy about the large Model 7).
Among the speakers with a more modern, "industrial" design, I like the Martin-Logan Ascent (the Prodigy is too big to suit me); the Meridian DSP 8000; the Infinity Intermezzo; some of the B&W "800" and CDM series; and the Cyrus Icon (see page 53 of Issue 13 of HiFi+ mag).
