How important are looks in a home a/v or car a/v purchase? Are looks everything and sound secondary (B&O) or is the other way around for you with sound being paramount/function over form (McIntosh). Personally I like a mix of both and I think there a great many manufacturers that do well in both catagories, like Martin Logan, Parasound, Jamo (their high end at least), and NHT, just to mention a few that come to mind. What if you were in a position to get, say, an integrated amp that happened to be the best (as far as numbers etc) but looked like poo run over twice? At the same time, say the same retailer had a similar unit for 30% more $$ that looked like a work of art and begged to be prominantly displayed, but had noticeably less impressive sound (through the same transducers). Which would you get and why? What are your priorities when it comes to this sort of thing?

What are your primary brand choices and why?

Well, I have to say that as important as sound is to me I also have to have a bit of the oooooo-look-what-I-have factor. I make a point to make sure my Kimber cables are visible, but at the same time I always keep my speaker grilles on, nonsensical I know. I spose it might be different if I had some B&W 801s, but alas no. For some people I spose there might be a bit of arrogance invovled, but if I owned KRELL compnents, you can bet I would invest in longer cable runs in order to display them in a very prominent way, unfortunately I am without the $xx,000 to make that happen.

i prefer sound over looks when it comes to car audio... whose going to see my subs??!?!? theyre in my trunk.... i want everybody to hear and feel them only 2 people have ever seen them.... at home my subs are always hidden.. i custom made my subs out of car subs in a custom box. my towers on the other hand have to look good. nice metallic silver finish. as for brands home audio athena technoligies and harmon kardon for auto infinity and rockford fosgate

In an audio video system Looks come first for the Video Display part ie. picture quality. The FIRST goal of any sound component should be to deliver top notch sound, unlike say the Bose philosophy of goal 1. looks, goal 2 simplicity . goal 3 expandibility and goal 4 sound. No wonder Bose sounds awful, sound quality is their 4th stated goal. I think its an added bonus if your costly high fidelity preamps, and amps, and SACD players and speakers look great, but if they don't, hide them in a cabinet and buy a nice piece of art to look at. Myself, I like the way my Rotel Amp, Yamaha Receiver, Pioneer DVD player and Polk Audio speakers look. Heck I even like my piano black finished Velodyne Subwoofer My system is displayed prominently on a large rack right next to my movie screen.

Rotel makes a fine fine power amp and they look fantastic. best of both worlds there. I would certainly put PS and Parasound up there as well. I have always loved the ADCOM sound, I just wish they could do something more with the faceplates. Not bling, just artistic industrial understated elegance. . . . did that make sense? Certainly Krell is up there too in the looks and performance dept., I just have 50 grand lying around for a good set up :(