Originally Posted by
scott fitlin
I admit, looks influence me to some degree! But in the end, its always the sound that gets me, regardless of how it looks!
I even find myself looking at all the pretty cables, thinking, WOW, they look so nice, so cool! But, are they truly worth over $1000 for a 1 meter pair?
OTOH, some of the best sounding stuff, especially from the pro and theatre lines, was also some of the ugliest stuff!
What I know for sure, is in fact, LOOKS do sell products, and these days they make speaker cabinets that are fine furniture as well! Same for amps, cables and electronics! Betcha the WAF is much higher when looking at a pair of B & W 801,s or 802,s than it is for pro studio monitors in utility cabinets? A plastic knob will turn the potentiometer shaft just like knobs machined from a billet of solid titanium, but what looks nicer?
Cable companies do the same thing by making real slick looking cables, in fact, they put alot of money into the materials to make slick looking outer jackets! Now, if the cable legitemately sounds better than off the shelf cable materials, why doesnt the pro compamies offer these enhanced wires, but in utility jackets! The consumer variants of the great sounding pro stuff was always packaged in more cosmetically attractive packages! The JBL L-300 comes to mind, its a consumer version of a well known and popular JBL studio monitor!
But I dont see pro compamies offering pro versions of assoteric wire! And, yes, there are pro systems that have amazing sound quality, and amazing resolution, so if theres a real difference to be heard, it can be heard through a really high quality pro sound system, especially operated by someone that really knows what they are doing!
I mean, take an amplifier, on one hand, there are some really beautiful looking amps pictured in stereophool, and some sound really good, but would they sell as well, if they looked like a Crown? Then others really look beautiful, but dont sound anything like they look!
You gotta buy with your EARS, not your eyes! But who would spend $4500 on a pair of interconnects in a plain grey teflon jacket?