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Yuck, Yuck, Yuck....


thebes

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Not knuck, knuck, knuck like the Stooges would say, but has anybody noticed just how ugly the current offerings of home speakers are?

Trust me I'm not just talking Klipsch here.

In the olden days, speakers (excepting things like folded horns where form had to absolutely follow function) were by and large rectangles, constrained by certain laws of physics, electronics etc. You had to do such and such to move such and such a volume of air with that that and the other driver. Trust me I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to making music sound good when it come out of the speaker, but I've been led to believe that 's pretty much how it works.

The companies peddled their products on the basis of how they sounded, not how they looked. They covered up their ugliness and obtrusiveness by turning them into furniture with beautiful wood finishes. Still clunky but acceptable.

Fast forward to the Home Theater craze, the WAF factor, the desire to be "with it" etc. and the result is the ugliest collection of speakers the world has ever seen. Saw the new umpteen thousand B&W's a few months ago. The tweeter on top top looks like nothing more than a gigantic turd inadvertently dropped on top, or maybe adeer whistle glued onto the side of a car. The Sony offerings are exact copies of those divider poles they use at airports to manage ticket lines. Put the grills on the new Icon line and you've got a black rolling pin standing upright.

Almost across the board this multi-billion dollar industry has produced a cavalcade of badly designed dreck. The word "chintzy" comes to mind on most of these offerings. They look cheap but they carry hefty price tags. They aspire to be modern but look like trailer park castoffs.

Maybe .5% of the homes in America have architecture that could conceivably integrate the so-called aesthetics's of these speaker designs. Surprisingly most of these offerings sound very good in historical terms, but 20 years from now I can't see even one of them considered to be a collectible on the basis of how they actually look. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when we live in an era when Target is considered an arbiter of good taste and Ipods win design awards, but it stills appalls me when I consider just how far industrial design has fallen. I've an old 1940's era toaster I'm about to polish up. I'll stare at it and whisper to the long dead designer "Oh how glad I am that you weren't around to see this".

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It's quite possible the present designers worked as Interior Decorators for George Jetson.

I've quite often thought the same thing Marty but considering the sound from most of these speakers they don't have to look good. For the most part they look like they sound. Turdish.

Harry

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Maron, A Man after My own Heart, "If it don't go, Chrome It", I use that expression, and people give me a blank stare, have no clue what I mean, Ah my friend, the world is passing me bye, my cave is dark, and just not alot of calling for Dinosuars anymore..........I feel so almost, un-welcome in this world sometimes ......................... Yuck, indeed.............

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Does anyone remember Yamaha's ear-shaped driver from the early '70s? I think it was mounted in a rectangular box.

Making a loudspeaker driver in the shape of the human ear is about as logical as building an eyeball-shaped video display.

Lee

 

Haha,  good one...

Well, i work in the electronics business, and i do agree that the whole "B&O design trend" is taking over.

It's almost that they make you pay for their "genius" design, not whats inside(not that their's anything worth paying for anyway...).

I like good looking audio equipment and speakers, maby even with a small amount of twist, but i don't want it to look like a UFO or a goddamn chocolat...

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That last one was probably not the right speaker to choose Marty - go listen to them if you get a chance and report back. These speakers - when originally launched - threatened to turn the audio world on its head - just check out the reviews. As far as I can recall there were production problems and it stopped them taking off like they were expected to.

I do agree the design would be difficult to house - but this really is a case of design following function - according to the designer anyway. He is just not a big fan of boxed speakers.

In reality there is no real reason that a speaker has to be a box - we have just gotten used to them that way. Avantgardes appear to sell well enough at their price point to show that some people can accept outrageous looking speakers in their living rooms / listening rooms - preumaby on the basis of sound.

BTW - I too like that toaster - but not everything has to look retro to look good.

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That last one was probably not the right speaker to choose Marty - go listen to them if you get a chance and report back. These speakers - when originally launched - threatened to turn the audio world on its head - just check out the reviews. As far as I can recall there were production problems and it stopped them taking off like they were expected to.

I do agree the design would be difficult to house - but this really is a case of design following function - according to the designer anyway. He is just not a big fan of boxed speakers.

In reality there is no real reason that a speaker has to be a box - we have just gotten used to them that way. Avantgardes appear to sell well enough at their price point to show that some people can accept outrageous looking speakers in their living rooms / listening rooms - preumaby on the basis of sound.

BTW - I too like that toaster - but not everything has to look retro to look good.

Max, I'm not arguing about sonics here only aesthetics's. And yes it doesn't have to be retro to look cool. Many times modern industrial designers get it right, but it seems to me that in the speaker world they far too often go astray.

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