I agree with this completely!
Yes me too !
We live married, my wife works and contributes considerably to the income
Whenever we buy a piece of furniture it is a major investment. My wife forks out the budget, because in her mind the furniture serves a useful purpose. We spend considerable time and budget ensuring the furniture is to our taste and fits in with the rest.
Loudspeakers are big units, regardless whether it concerns bookshelf’s on a stand/support or floor standing speakers. We spent like US$ 10k to 20k on the interior of the living room, do you really think any loudspeaker is allowed in that room or even in the entire home that does not look good or misfits the rest of the interior.
Sound quality is very important for me, but no matter how good a speaker sounds if it doesn’t look good there is no way that we will buy it.
I don’t like DSP cosmetic Bass, I am a scientist and Bass is a function of volume. But that does not mean I like to look at big ugly enclosures eating a considerable part of our even more expensive real estate.
Neither myself nor my wife would enjoy a speaker that does not i some way resembles a bit of beauty.
Apparently there are more potential customers concerned about the looks.
And for most of us, all we can judge is the looks of the AN3’s, not all forum members have the budget to visit Axpona neither do we live in Boulder Colorado. That makes the visual impression even more important.
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I don’t! And many other neither. For a plethora of reasons.
And the latest AN3 design has no “lettuce” in front of the driver.
Keep in mind I never stated appearance is irrelevant. 
Well said! My feeling is somehow that we still observe a development process…also in design…I guess the last word isn’t spoken yet.
really? The speaker design decides if the wife agrees to the purchase 
Again, I never stated appearance is irrelevant and take no position one way or the other.
However, I remain fascinated with how important appearance appears to be to many.
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You did not say that. That is right.
You were:
And I can imagine there are many who really do not care. Like: if you have your own listening room and sound quality is your absolute passion, who cares about the looks, as long as meets your expectations of sound quality.
I and perhaps many more on this form do not enjoy that luxury, or have passion for both looks and sound. So, I just described our thought process when purchasing equipment like this.
I am not critical of your preference.
I take the opposite view here: I would find it fascinating if appearance of speakers did not matter.
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I think there is a wonderful choice of weird and wonkish looking speakers out there for us to choose from. I’m a photographer and my wife is a designer. The appearance of such a large pair of objects in our living room is as important as the sound. Why not do both!
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One of the great joys of life is having the opportunity to design, create and implement. Sound quality is by far our priority, but moving into the future, a minimalist design is becoming an important factor in our household.
What is fascinating is not that it matters, but how much it matters. And the strong opinions on relatively minor aspects, such as plinth v. no plinth.
It would be equally interesting if appearance did not matter at all.
I am also not sold on the lattices. The waveguide around the tweeter makes sense to me because it has a sound dispersion goal. But my sense is that many audiophiles prefer unobstructed drivers, plus an easily mountable grill in case the kids or grandkids come over. I do. Even though it might not be true, it still seems to me that these bars in front of the mid bass and subwoofer drivers must be reflecting some percentage of sound waves back. That would be my two cents. Thanks to PS Audio for sharing these design iterations, its fascinating, and I am convinced there will be a great result at the end.
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In the absence of hearing a speaker, the visual appearance is all the readers of the forum have to go on. Paul has posted photos of the prototypes for the readers to view and presumably comment on. I heard the speakers at AXPONA and since then they have undergone a significant design revision. One can assume the sound we heard at the show is now quite dissimilar.
It is well known in marketing/UX ( see Donald Norman “The Design of Everyday Things) that the visceral first impression of objects plays a profound role in the appeal of products. How big of a role is something that cannot be measured in the absence of functional evaluations, word of mouth, the competitive environment, and, of course, price to name but a few factors.
At this stage—in the absence of the real world factors that will shape choice—aesthetics either matter or they do not. It’s binary. We have no way to know “how much.”
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You know what they say. The devil is in the detail. So the less trim / details like plinth, side panels, shiny feet… but it is all personal preference. The nice thing, there is no wrong or right here. I think for the AN series the solid wood high gloss polished side panels look awesome.
But if the cost gets lower I like very much the minimalistic style of the Stellar electronics and hope that the Stellar speakers will follow that concept.
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How does that compare to original prototype size?
This is exactly why it is interesting to watch the discussion. Many clearly have a strong visceral reaction to the appearance wholly independent of the sound the speakers may produce. Fascinating.
This looks WAY BETTER, either this, or slim metal legs like I’ve shared in the past, also if I understand it correctly, due to smaller mid-bass, it’s narrower? That’s also a great change as I thought AN3 is too big out of the box being the smallest of the AN series. Now, IF the servo woofer could go down to 10", I’d say this could potentially become a much more livable package, as the 20" depth is the only limiting factor.
In terms of baffles in front, I am not a huge fan, aesthetically speaking. I believe the solutions by Focal and Sonus Faber right now are the best aesthetically.