Audio Research writes: ” The golden age of tubes? The chassis of this Reference 160S was sprayed gold with Cerakote® ceramic finish a few years ago just to see what it would look like. Cerakote® is a very durable ceramic finish that we adopted for our I/50 integrated amplifier so we could offer it in different finishes including red, blue, white and gold, in addition to silver and black.
Our usual finishes have always been anodized natural (silver) or black, but it is difficult to achieve consistency anodizing other colors, as we discovered in the late 90’s when we briefly offered a “Gray” anodized finish.
About 20 years ago our service department received a Reference One pre and VTM200 amps that were painted with real gold flake so they would match the esthetic of the owner’s “gold room.” That was real bling!”