Gadgets for Kings [Part III]: Technoholik picks luxury audio devices

 

In a five-part series, we will look at some of the luxury products that meld technology with exotic materials and craftsmanship. In this part, we look at speakers, headphones and music player that are not so much about breakthrough innovation, as they are about refinement.  

Organic Harmony speakers

Shape Audio’s Organic Harmony Speaker are Omni-directional speakers with a built-in 1000W speaker and an outer shell cast in precious metals. These speakers that measure in at 1350×270 mm are crafted by unknown Swedish artisans, who take months to craft a speaker after an order has been placed. In kind consideration of others, the company will take a limited number of orders for their speakers. The Bronze version is limited to 99 pieces, weighs 95kgs and costs €63,000, while the Sterling silver version is limited to five pieces, weighs 115kgs and is priced at €300,000 ($416,000). The clincher is the gold version which is made of solid 18-carat gold, weighs 215 kilos and is limited to just one piece with a price-tag  €5,000,00.

Moneual Renaissance

Moneual Lab’s ‘Jewelry PC’ has an enclosure that is peppered with the most expensive grade of blue Sapphires, Topazes, Rubies, Diamonds and other gemstones. These gemstones appear to serve little other purpose than to take the price of the PC to a ridiculous one million dollars. This one of a kind PC made its appearance at CES in 2007 and so, by today’s standards the innards are not all that impressive. Inside is an AMD Athlon64 FX processor, 8GB RAM, 2 TB SATA HDD, blu-ray drive, motherboard by ASUS, ATI graphics card, two PCI SIGMACOM video accelerators, and the dreaded Windows Vista Ultimate Edition from Microsoft.

Ultrasone’s Edition 8

Ultrasone’s Edition 8 headphones are a mix of some clever engineering and use of exotic materials, which takes the cost of the pair to about 1,500 US dollars. These headphones employ Ultrasone’s very own S-Logic natural surround technology that works with the contours of ear to produce spatial effects and produce same level of loudness at reduced sound-pressure. Additionally, UltraLow-Emission (ULE) shielding blocks up to 90% of radiation generated by the magnets.  The ear cups are crafted from ruthenium which is scratch resistant metal derived from Platinum. The ear pads and headband are covered in Ethiopian sheepskin and the tri-bass-tube driver is plated with titanium. 

Shure SE 535 headphones

Shure’s sound-isolating earphones are available in two models, bronze and clear, and each of these sports propriety ‘Triple High-Definition MicroDrivers’ that utilizes dedicated tweeter and dual woofers for spatial simulation and deeper bass reproduction. The detachable and replaceable cables are reinforced using Kevlar and tips are coated in gold. These earphones ship with a ‘Premium Fit Kit’ which includes sound isolating sleeves in assorted size and shape for customized fit. You can bag this one for about Rs 35,000.

Bang & Olufsen BeoSound 5

Bang & Olufsen makes it on our list a second time, and this entry is BeoSound 5 music player. The player is comprised of a relatively large aluminum dial that is somewhat reminiscent of amplifiers of yore. Attached to this dial, is a 10.4” screen for all display purposes. BeoSound 5 supports playback of lossless WMA and FLAC format audio files. The player also has built-in software that attempts to unravel its master’s taste in music and categorizes songs under various moods. The player has built-in storage capacity of 500GB, which is not too shabby considering it only does audio. BeoSound 5 is going for a little over 5,000 dollars.

Next in this series, we will take a look at some astonishing televisions, projectors and home theatre systems.