Do looks sell gear for you?

Paint it black. Worked for the Stones!

The short answer is yes it does. There is plenty of gear I would not like to see in my racks. But luckily I have never had to compromise. The gear I have sonically gravitated towards, have had matching visual aesthetics. I think that most designers are very aware of where their products aesthetically sits and the sound and design goes hand in hand, especially in boutique pieces. Just as with instruments, the piece in itself should be inspiring to work with.

i would never buy an instrument that isn’t visually attractive. With studio gear I might do that if it sounds crazy good. But I would likely hide it low in my rack 😆

EDIT: after posting i started thinking more about the whole concept and as the atmosphere and feel of the studio has an undeniable impact on the creativity and performance, I’d go as far as saying the looks of the gear and how they sit in the soundscape should at least have a small part in the outcome of the production. Don’t we go back to studios that feels and looks great and gives us a good vibe to work in?

I have used Purple Audio gear and thought it sounded great, but I can't bring myself to put it in my rack. Fortunately I found out about Audioscape and got a pair of 76Ds instead of having to spring for the Purples or pay the price for current UAs. But even with the Audioscape, it bothers me that they used a red power button. 


On the other hand, I have 3 different pieces from Retro which I think is as good as it gets aesthetically (and even non-engineers comment on how cool it looks)

The modern mini-split A/Cs are a mess of impossible to service SMD components, with overly slow remote response times, and shoddy plastic exterior parts that creak and bend before they splinter off into micro-plastics which fill your pores and literally keep you from cooling off. They completely butcher the traditional wind envelopes created by one of the more classic RCA tube A/Cs...it's like the inventors had never experienced air conditioning and modeled their airflow after the way a bronchitis-infected dog breathes on you vs using a properly Brüel + Kjær measured wind tunnel like the classics certainly would have. The race to the bottom continues. 

Thinking of the Focusrite green and it’s plastic, a couple of years ago a bunch of SR guys and I were discussing PA amps, Crown Pre Harmon had gone all plastic on the Macrotech faceplate, nobody of any note followed suite on the top touring amps, but even today the middle ground is full of plastic.

Looptrotter comes to mind: vintageking.com/looptrotter-audio-monster-compressor-2?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw8MG1BhCoARIsAHxSiQkOy8noxxtBmJrBk3v0mSlOf0ufnFeaOv3_VyMP5xgYEziGUdWjR_kaAlZbEALw_wcB

I am not crazy about the color scheme - but if it sounds great, that should be what counts.

I can understand that.  It is a color that some will like and some will not.  I think blues are safer - like the Tube Tech Cl1b.   Black is perhaps the safest.  Though what is really important to me, is really easy to read print!

That is for sure. I briefly had a tube-tech device and I loved that blue. Unfortunately it had some issues and had to be returned. Along those lines, the Stam MEQP-1AS+ has a similar blue; it's absolutely beautiful.

I do like the RCA gray immensely though. So utilitarian. I was a military brat and grew up with old surplus type stuff laying around. It just makes me feel good. I recently picked up an RCA MI 34654 negative peak broadcast limiter (oh lordy this thing is amazing function) and it's faceplate is a massive immense thick plate of industrial gray that I'm almost certain would stop a tank round. There are just a couple of controls with tiny knobs and a switch sparsely interspersed across the sweepingly broad expanse of the faceplate. It took me 2 days to figure out how to use it, and during those nail biting moments I was debating myself as to whether I would keep the device even if it turned out to be non-functional. It looks that good. Turns out that gain staging is incredibly important with broadcast limiters, especially this one and it works just fine soon as I figure it out what I was not doing right. So yup. Win win win: cool function and astounding aesthetic, and will stop a tank round if Red Dawn ever happens.

I think that the Coil Audio aesthetic is a perfect updating of the classic look. I love the CA 70S and it's red badge counterpart the CA 286S.

I've recently picked up an Orban 8100A broadcast limiter and stereo generator and it's bland, milquetoast, sightly off-putting dull bile yellow has really grown on me. It makes me feel like a kid again in the '70s :-)

Believe this would be considered 'Streamline Moderne', a branch of Art Deco.  Yes, ventilation for tubes in the racks.  Inside is all chrome too.  

That is sweet! With the hood popped like that she'd be right at home at a hot rod rally. I can smell the diesel from here. I'd love to hear that.

Silly me. And here I've been buying gear all these years based on how it sounds.

Could not care less about the looks.

-09