Hmmm, that doesn't look good for B&W.
By the way, I've heard it said that many speaker manufacturers
primary design objective is to build good looking speakers. People think they sound better when they look good.
Seems like that's where marketing psychology is bad for the consumer in the end, as it puts sound quality second to cosmetic considerations.
Of course, I'm sure most people think that this only applies to
other people, not to themselves. We all think we're smarter than the average bear... but if everyone's smarter than average, than an average can't possibly exist
That's what makes a dedicated HT room so special. Even if it looks like this:
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j123/racingxtc7/4129883462_66537a5141_o.jpg
No one sees it. (Although I like the way the Q8 looks)
Except that one is still affected in the purchasing decision when selecting it. I have been buying and selling used gear off and on, as a little hobby because I like playing with various gear for a while and lack the room for storing every possible toy (as well as the budget for buying them and keeping them). I have noticed that one can, for the most part, tell market value by looks and also by reputation of the product. Actual performance seems like a much less relevant aspect of the price of the item in question. A small exception to that is with power amplifiers, where very high power commands a higher price, but in such cases, it is typically people buying a high number that they don't really need, so it typically isn't the resulting performance that matters. Another thing that affects value is whether the item is the top of the line or not; for example, the price difference between an old Pioneer SX-1250 and SX-1050 seems to be greater than the actual performance difference warrants.
Looks matter to people. If the selections were all made double blind, probably most of us would have different gear than we do.
In my case, a very long time ago (early 1980's) I bought a
Pioneer SX-1250, which was purchased not because I needed all the features or power, but, in part, because I liked the looks of it and I had wanted one when I first saw one new in the stereo shops earlier when I could not afford it. In this particular case, it was probably at about its lowest point in value, as it was just a used receiver at the time, and I paid $325 for it, in near mint condition with a copy of the manual and the original box and packing material, which I still have. And it is still in near mint condition, as I take care of my equipment. In recent years, I could easily have sold it for twice what I paid for it.
I had been looking at new equipment at that time, but the used Pioneer was a better value than anything new I could get; certainly, if I had purchased a new Denon receiver that I was looking at that cost about that much, its current market value would be near zero. (And its power output was about a fifth of the Pioneer, and it lacked many of the Pioneer's features, and its tuner performance, though not bad, was not as good.)
Now, the things I like about the SX-1250 include much that has little to do with actual performance, though some of it does have to do with actual use of it (but not all). I very much like the real wood trim and real wood veneer, and I like the aesthetics of the piece very much. Since it sits in my living room in plain view, this matters to me, and I make no excuse for this, but it does not have to do with actual performance, and I know that very well. I also like the aluminum front, which is easy to read and one can easily find the controls one wants. I can see how things are set from across the room, unlike any of the black face gear I have. And I like that each control does one thing; it is not like a modern receiver with an onscreen menu, with which what pushing a button does depends upon what was pushed previously. So it is very easy to use, despite its large number of controls (which, by the way, are very logically grouped and arranged, unlike quite a lot of gear I have played with over the years). Convenience and ease of use are things that can affect whether one should buy a thing or not; this is most clearly seen when considering a universal remote control, which obviously does not improve the actual performance of anything, and is money purely for convenience.
To consider reputation for a moment, if today, Bose released the greatest speaker ever made, many here would never consider it and never bother listening to it, based upon Bose's bad reputation. This illustrates the effect of reputation. I might also add that I used to own a piece of McIntosh gear, that was not particularly good, but I sold it for a decent amount of money, getting its normal market price for it. Yes, it was solidly made, but its actual performance was nothing special at all, and its market value has to do more with the McIntosh name than anything else. Again, reputation matters for what people want and what they will pay for it. (Please don't misunderstand my remarks; there was nothing wrong with the McIntosh gear, just that its market value far exceeds its actual performance. But the people who claim that once one tries McIntosh, one will never go back to other gear, are just living in a dream world.)
Now, when something is going to be in plain view, I can totally understand someone selecting something that is aesthetically pleasing to look at. This is fine, as long as one realizes that that is what one is doing. I personally would never buy a pair of speakers that cost $1k or more that had vinyl veneer on them. Speakers tend to sound their best when they are in plain view, and so hiding them is generally out of the question. (I would, however, forgive a budget vinyl finish on a $100 speaker, as at that price point, the cost of a good finish could be a significant portion of the total cost, and I would rather have better performance, if the difference is significant. But with a speaker at $1k or more, an extra $50 for a decent finish is an insignificant percentage of the total cost.)
But there is also the issue of things looking like they perform well, and people are influenced by that as well, thinking that some things will be better because of some aspect of the appearance of the item. For example, there are people who believe that a 15" woofer will always put out more or better bass than a 12" woofer, which, however, is false, and obviously so to anyone who has measured the performance of very many speakers, or has paid attention to the measurements that others have taken. And there are people who believe that a three way speaker is better than a two way speaker, and all sorts of other such things, that are not directly matters of performance at all. In part, this is due to the fact that it is far easier to look to the size or number of drivers than to figure out which thing actually performs better, and people are often intellectually lazy and go with some easy way to make a decision rather than an accurate way to make the decision.
Anyway, any company that does not consider the looks of the product would be foolish to do so, as the looks will affect whether people buy it or not, and probably more so than actual performance. So it only makes good business sense for them to put some thought into the appearance of the item. And it also is not necessarily bad for the consumer, either, as a speaker manufacturer who makes speakers too ugly for anyone to buy will not be helping anyone, no matter how good they sound, for people will not be willing to buy them to enjoy them.
