How important is how your hi-fi looks?

[Andrewjvt]

As a designer, I feel there is no excuse for poor design at any price point...

Really? What if you're, for example, a one man band, making clones of existing classic SET valve amps? Do you really expect someone like that to pay much attention to the "design"?

 

Or what if you think the route to overall best sound in speakers, without getting too over the top in size and price, is to mate a 15" bass driver with a compression driven midrange with a horn that's shaped to help in-room dispersion? How on earth do you design such a speaker to look good? The best you can do is cover the ugliest bits with some cloth or foam.

 

Sometimes in hi-fi it's acceptable for form to follow function.

Form should follow function in almost all good design:

A lone SET Amp maker should pay attention to the design of the curcuit layout, how the components fit inside the case, how the wiring is soldered and which components to use. These are all design considerations and affect both the sound quality and reliability.

If the design of a speaker is thought through properly, the aesthetics should look after themselves. Bass driver, compression driver and a horn - PMC manage to pull all that together very successfully.

Which model pmc uses horn and compression drivers??

 

[paulkebab]

she won't have it in the wardrobe. If it looks shoyte, I wont buy it, simple as. Would your partner pay for a top quality kitchen in the wrong colour with different doors? No.

 

[insider9]

she won't have it in the wardrobe. If it looks shoyte, I wont buy it, simple as. Would your partner pay for a top quality kitchen in the wrong colour with different doors? No.

Why would she be buying me a kitchen? I don't let her anywhere near hifi and the kitchen

 

[lindsayt]

Form should follow function in almost all good design:
A lone SET Amp maker should pay attention to the design of the curcuit layout, how the components fit inside the case, how the wiring is soldered and which components to use. These are all design considerations and affect both the sound quality and reliability.

If the design of a speaker is thought through properly, the aesthetics should look after themselves. Bass driver, compression driver and a horn - PMC manage to pull all that together very successfully.

We're getting into semantics here.

The SET amp maker will engineer the amp for performance and reliability and low production costs whilst maintaining performance.

He will not particularly design the amplifier for good looks, or marketing.

It all depends on your definitions.

In the 1990's David Browns were asked to produce a final drive gear shaft for the Mclaren F1 team. They specified that all surfaces should be ground - which was par for the course for every geared component produced by the company as you want the geared and bearing surfaces to be made to the finest tolerances and have the smoothest surface finish. Mclaren sent back the initial batch of 20, saying that they weren't ground on all surfaces. The sales dept replied "Yes they are". Mclaren replied. "No they're not. You haven't ground the 2 flat surfaces at each end of the shaft!" So these were ground and sent back. Grinding these surfaces provided no improvement to the performance whatsoever. Doing it increased cost. What it did was allow Mclaren to display them in their reception area. And that to me sums up the difference between engineering and design.

 

[Vladimir]

Industrial design by definition applies to mass production. Cottage industry hifi really is an exception and not the reference here.

 

[newlash09]

Ali express is full of CNC machined aluminium amp cases that are copies of high end krell and several other makes. Considering their reasonable cost, there is no excuse to box up all engineering talent in a dull looking box. The brilliance behind engineering, can afford a little design flourish

 

[Vladimir]