Hi-Fi Bling

[Mr. Widget]

I am not generally a fan of bling in Hi-Fi or in general.
MBL produce some very fine pieces of gear and impressive sounding speakers, but their aesthetics are a bit much for my taste.

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[Mr. Widget]

But this type of bling is pretty cool in an uber clean steam punk sort of way.


Widget
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[Mr. Widget]

...and there is even a built in crossover to allow biamping!


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[srm51555]

Thanks for sharing. For the steam punk unit, I do like the volume gears idea and it does have a couple nice features we could use.

Thanks,
Scott

[hjames]

HiFi Rose RA180 integrated amplifier - just Wow!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tPp_JZRt08

and

https://eng.hifirose.com/RA180

[Mr. Widget]

HiFi Rose RA180 integrated amplifier - just Wow!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tPp_JZRt08

and

https://eng.hifirose.com/RA180

Just wow is right!

Personally I doubt I would buy it even if I had a need for an expensive integrated amp, but I applaud the audaciousness of the retro design.
That YouTube video is hilarious... it sounds like it was written and performed by AI.


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[Ducatista47]

When I was in film classes in the late 1960s, the unobtainably expensive (for an art school student) Nagra III off site tape recorder dazzled me with its goof-proof, spartan controls and workmanlike aesthetic. One may not need a professional audio unit that you can work with Winter gloves on, but the idea of it still turns me on. On location it was frequently used hanging from a shoulder strap.





Nowadays nothing pleases me more than Nelson Pass's First Watt units' minimalist appearances. The "B" unit controllers like this B1 Buffer Preamp are as simple a box as possible; they all look more or less identical. A brief explanation, the volume control is an active buffer circuit and the tiny switch selects between sources. Impedance is matched and THD is .0007. Leaving nothing to chance, Nelson shipped it with a hospital grade power supply.

The power amplifiers are designed inside and out to passively facilitate a constant and specific temperature for the class A circuits. They are as simple inside as they are outside, and all to an engineering end. A few markings are printed slightly differently from unit to unit but they pretty much all look alike. Well, some are black and some are silver.




In a nutshell, one thing has not changed. I prefer the design work be left in the hands of the engineers. JBL always bugged me by hiring designers. If I wanted furniture I would have shopped for furniture. The Paragon (Ranger) with its little Swedish Modern feet gave me a facepalm. Or am I thinking of another 50s/60s JBL furniture piece like the C38? Just give me the 4345. Rant...fume...

[Mr. Widget]

In a nutshell, one thing has not changed. I prefer the design work be left in the hands of the engineers. JBL always bugged me by hiring designers. If I wanted furniture I would have shopped for furniture. The Paragon (Ranger) with its little Swedish Modern feet gave me a facepalm. Or am I thinking of another 50s/60s JBL furniture piece like the C38? Just give me the 4345. Rant...fume...

I would submit your preference is a minority viewpoint, not unique, but not one held by most of us.

FWIW: Even the 4345 has a fair amount of industrial design in evidence.


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[Ducatista47]

I would submit your preference is a minority viewpoint, not unique, but not one held by most of us.

FWIW: Even the 4345 has a fair amount of industrial design in evidence.


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Of course I am an outlier in this opinion. It increased in intensity over the decades as I was bombarded with endless admirations for what audio equipment looked like. Another tiresome influence were the frequent WAF mentions. While I understand not wanting to sleep on the couch, it also serves as an excuse of sorts. "But they HAVE to look like furniture." Myself, I do genuinely prefer the visible engineering to the furniture factor pretty much every time, so at least I'm being honest. With electronics, my biggest objection over the years was the artist in me feeling the changes beyond the plain case making things worse. POOR design in bad taste.

As to the 4345s, When the grille is on - the way I played them BTW, multiple cats here - little design of any sort is visible. I always figured it was an afterthought for JBL in this case anyway, as they were designed to be pro, not home gear and soffit mounted to boot. It makes perfect sense to me why a lovely very expensive Revel needs to look so pretty. They are sold to reside visibly in luxury homes surrounded by very expensive furnishings.

Sometimes I didn't mind if the design was a very practical solution to the problem. The original 250Ti comes to mind. Plus that speaker actually is an attractive, elegant design while not being a look forced onto an existing engineered solution.

In any case as I now much prefer personal listening, one refreshing thing is that while fashion and visibles seem to rule in the headphone world few care what an in ear monitor looks like. At least I hope so.