- Bluetooth and wired audio player with a retro look
- Unfortunately, it’s a concept, not a real product
- I would buy one in a heartbeat
We don’t often cover concepts on TechRadar, but I’m happy to make an exception for this brilliant little Bluetooth speaker design: Jinkyo Han has created something that mixes Teenage Engineering’s design cues with a bit of Dictaphone and OG Sony Walkman to create something amazing. I absolutely love it and this is my way of getting a business to make it real.
It may be retro on the outside, but Hans’ design is perfectly modern inside, with both wired and wireless audio and a high-resolution DAC. It looks like a great combination of old fashioned design and modern circuitry.
You’re spinning me right around
As Han explains on Behance: “Reminiscent of a retro cassette tape, the design recreates the image of a tape spinning on a circular shelf while music plays, translating the materiality of the past into a contemporary object.” The front of the unit has a perforated speaker grill and a rotating circle that looks like an old reel-to-reel tape recorder.
I think it strongly resembles the portable FiiO KA15 DAC that I happen to be testing at the moment. It pretends to be a cassette player – and it’s part of a retro-modern trend that has also seen FiiO bring back the portable CD player and the portable cassette player in some style.
I think Han’s design is even more fun, and while I highly doubt the moving parts would be duplicated in any production model due to the cost, strain on battery life, and potential noise and pocket lint collection, I’d love to see more hardware with this same kind of design: it really reminds me of 1970s sci-fi movies like Quiet runningand of shows such as Location: 1999.
This isn’t the only fun sound design in Han’s portfolio: there are also some cool wall-mounted speakers that wouldn’t look out of place in IKEA’s latest speaker catalog and a more industrial-looking Bluetooth speaker based on the portable cassette recorders of the 1970s and 1980s – you might want to check out Han’s portfolio.
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