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How important is component “aesthetics” to you?

Obviously, performance, sound, etc is what matters most. However, some super fine, high performance products are just plain ugly. Aesthetcs does play an important role for me since we have placed a lot of emphasis on furnishing our home. 

Anyway, my search for a preamp has led me to the conclusion that ugly is more the norm. I love the look of glowing tubes with the Primalunas, mystere, Atma-sphere, Rogers, Decware, mapletree etc. In the solid state world, the macs have those famous blue meters. Even the “fake tube” older Peachtree components looked really nice. 

Just curious how “ looks” play a role when choosing components?
aberyclark
zavato's avatar
zavato
903 posts
 
 
lalitk said


“I hear you....must be nice to own a piece of history. I believe MR78 is probably the best McIntosh tuner to date.”

listening to my MR78 right now. Love having it. I had a magnum dynalab previously which I sold for more than the MR78 cost me. It’s a great tuner. The MR71 is also great. If I could justify owning two tuners, the other would be an MR71. I already blew my chance at owning a Marantz 10B. Some years back I was offered a pair of 10b’s. For $1200. For both of them. 

rockadanny
1,037 posts
 
Not at all. I would run a pair of paper plates as speaker drivers connected to a potato as an amplifier if it sounded better than my current gear. Although I admit I haven't yet tried that combination.
kosst_amojan
2,095 posts
 
@lalitk
It’s not particularly special aside from the facts that I built it, it runs hot rails, and it has no current limiting. It's doing 41 watts instead of the standard 25 watts. The thing that surprises people is that the actual amps are so small and simple compared to the massive power supply. The boards literally have 25 components each.
lalitk's avatar
lalitk
1,105 posts
 
Great, I am happy for you. Not everyone possess the know how or inclination to build their own class A amps. 

However, I do hear that one can easily build a class D amps with available DIY kits (thanks to HYPEX).  Whether they sound as good as Class A is purely subjective (please, let’s not debate class A and D merits here). 
kosst_amojan
2,095 posts
 
Trust me. Class A amps are very easy to build. The F5 is very simple compared to typical commercial products, but if you want to see brutal simplicity, go look at Nelson's Zen Variations. You'll never find a class D that simple. I honestly think class A is where to start building amps. They avoid a lot of the complications that plague other designs. You're going to be extremely hard pressed to beat something like a simple PassDIY amp built in dual mono. You'll never buy that kind of quality for equivalent money, not even close. What is 41 watts of Pass class A power worth? Way more than what it cost me to build, and that's why I go that route. 
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