Poll: "Ugliest" receivers and speakers?

[joel2762]

Those look yellow to me. Maybe I am wrong! They're still ugly anyhow, why can't they keep the tweeter inside and have a normal flat-topped cabinet so people might be able to lay something on it and not have it fall out

[markw]

From a guy who grew up in the 60's and still has a Marantz 2270 (with beee-yooo-tee-ful blue dial), A Fisher FM-100b, A Marantz 7/8 pair, I kinda think all current receivers are kinda uckin fugly, particularly the black ones.

But, my Denon 2802 is symmetricaly laid out and relatively uncluttered for all it does. I can live with it, particularly since no "pretty" ones exist that will do what it does, or at least at the price I was willing to fork over.

I do wish we could get more champagne/silver units over here, though. I'd like my Denon a heckuva lot better then, at least visually.

[jamison]

anyone like the gold woofers on the Klisch reference series?

[Widowmaker]

anyone like the gold woofers on the Klisch reference series?

I do, but the problem is that I don't like those horn tweeters that Klipsch uses. Also, on the performance front, Klipsch speakers sound overly bright to me as if I had my treble or mids turned up too high.

[recoveryone]

I was just in my local High End store (Video Mart) and saw the new McIntosh's....Breathless is the best words I can think of right now. Their a stop and take a second and third look at piece of gear. www.mcintoshlabs.com

[recoveryone]

anyone like the gold woofers on the Klisch reference series?

The klip's are nice, but that room would be hell to calibrate (Brick walls and wood floors) echo city, city, city,city...........................

[jamison]

yah that room would be hell to calibrate, that pic is straight from Klipsch's website.
my room isnt much better with an L shape to it i can't put the surround speakers in the proper locations. Also my Front left speaker is near a hall way and i have the age old floor furnace to worry about. Anyone got any ideas how to isolate it from rattling? i have a Velodyne HGS-18 sub that is about 10 feet away and it rattles the floor furnace like crazy when i turn the volume up. Heck it rattles the windows in the garage on the other end of the house. I have Huge Spikes on the sub too.

[etude]

Jamison,
Spikes?!!! ... they are not really what you want. You should mount it so that any vibration of the box is damped underneath. By using spikes you are transferring vibrations to the floor. The vibrations of the floor will add coloration and change the sound. You may like this effect, you may not, but it will only decrease the accuracy. Foam underneath is probably better unless you like the coloration of the vibrating floor.

I don't know exactly what your furnace is, but it sounds like you need to add something that will dampen parts that are rattling where they are joined.

The Klipsch should be less of a problem with more directional speakers which I expect these to be. Bass is the main problem I can see as there is very little that will absorb low frequencies, so there will be a lot of bass energy affected by room modes.

Anyway, all this is going off topic!!! ..........

For me, aesthetics is more of a priority than most. For this reason, I actually like to build some of my own equipment. My speakers have curves and I like to use either piano gloss or an exotic veneer. My subs have aluminium drivers and no dustcaps. I like the look of the klipsch drivers, although their mains shown above look a little chunky. I think B&W make very beautiful speakers.

I'm surprised at some of the comments on receivers. I like my audio gear like my photography gear - black. They are easier to match, and it gives them a certain serious, technical look. I like Denon and Yamaha receivers that I have seen, although Marantz seem to have too-small volume knobs for my taste.

Silver components look to me more like popular cheap mini system brands like Teac, Toshiba, Panasonic, Hitachi, or even some of the many el cheapo unknowns. Gold can be nice and if you had mostly black components with one stand-out gold component, it could look good, almost as if it has the spotlight on it, but gold is harder to match to other components if they are silver and your decor as well. Silver and black are more neutral, and thus safer, so I understand why they are more popular.

[pelly3s]

The ugliest peices of gear on the market have to Proton or NAD. With Outlaw very close up there. But they are my three favorite companies. Great products for the money