How it looks / not how it sounds

The next chord amp? the cables go to the back? :star_struck::rofl:

Because, in my opinion, that loudspeaker system is gloriously beautiful, looks important, is the sign of a time and a culture when large didn’t mean mainly costly but also unavoidably large, when the search for beauty was not the quest for originality at all costs, and costs may have had a sense.

Almost everyone here thinks of cables as that unsightly mess at the back. If I was running a full set of these I would be chuffed to have all having a butchers hook.

I gave an enthusiastic like, but now am not sure if you mean the first or the second picture, or both. Anyway, I find the graphite blocks beautiful and the clear, ogival ones much less interesting (and, strangely, a lot more pretentious). But it’s just my opinion of course.

I meant both but I agree that the black boxes are the more attractive.

The ’aluminium spaceships’ in the other picture I find good looking and cool much like I find the Oracle Delphi turntable attractive. That is, good looking as solitaires but not something that would look good in a living room.

Best regards

Hans

sorry Max, i don’t know what you are referring about…?

These two provived many hours of sonic and visual exitement:

Bow ZZ Eight CD Player and

Bow ZZ One Integrated, with some other nice things in the background :grinning:

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The Bow stuff looks great. Same designer as for the early Primare amps I mentioned earlier in this thread.
Hans

Hi Hans,

quite true, Bo Christensen is behind all three of them. He seemingly found his style with the ZZ’s, as all his later designs for Artora (later Roksan Oxygen), Bel Canto Black and Aavik are only slightly different.

He was certainly a wonderful designer, if a little snobbish about Hi-Fi.

I purchased my Primare 928 monoblock power amps from Bo himself back in the early 90s, and he managed to find a matching 928 pre for me in Denmark. He had moved on to one of his newer designs and didn’t need the 928s any more.

I remember him being a little disparaging about the ‘downmarket’ direction (his words) in which Primare was heading (just prior I think to it’s move from Denmark to Sweden). He said that this was what had led to his leaving the company and setting up the new Bow Technologies.

My memory is a bit hazy on this now, but I seem to recall him offering to locate one of the early Bow ZZ Eight CD players for me at a very good price, but unfortunately at the time it was way outside my budget and so I declined the offer. It did remain on my wish list for a long time, but unfortunately I never did get around to getting hold of one.

I once owned a Bow Wazoo XL with Marten Design Miles II, and after these 14 years of Naimtology I am still unsure why I sold that system. To be clear: mine is not sarcasm, but the fact that I am so strongly bound to Naim doesn’t mean I think there’s nothing sounding as good or better on Earth. And a brand’s ability to keep you faithful to such a degree may have reasons to be studied psychiatrically. That said, the Wazoo XL was a hair algid and aloof, but sublime. When I replaced it with my first 202/200 in a way it was like if Melanie Laurent had exited the room and Madonna had entered.

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Bow integrated, cd player, and Marten speakers and Marten monoblocks.

image image image

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These Marten speakers look remarkably similar to the Dutch Kharma Exquisite Galileo and Exquisite Midi speakers.

Looks like they share some design cues. I have stood next to a pair of the Exquisite Galileo speakers and they looked extremely imposing but beautiful. Unfortunately I didn’t get to hear them. Price wise, they would fit in nicely with a Naim Statement amplifier.

yes i agree, very similar to the Marten. I like very much their look. But very pricey…
The Kharma sound is natural, well balanced, but a bit on the polite side. ( heard with ayre and lamm, not naim).

ugly and beautiful cost no object speakers

image

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If only I loved the sound. Looks they are 999 on a scale of 1-100 for me. I only listened at the dealer’s, to 400’s. Never got 'em in my home.

UMM - frenchrooster
Which is the ugly and which is the beautiful speaker?
neither would “fit” in my eclectic (fancy word for hodge-podge) decor.

The first are SBL’s MK3. I’m surprised that Naim allowed you to post a photo of the prototype since they are not painted black yet.

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I thought the first speaker was goldmund (iirc) and the second some sort of outsized duck decoy

for me the living voices olympian are beautiful ( the second ones).
The Goldmund are ugly.
Of course, only my opinion…

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