- Bluetooth and wired audio player with retro looks
- Unfortunately it’s a concept, not a real product
- I’d 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 stunning. I absolutely love it, and this is my way of willing a company into making it real.
It may be retro on the outside but Han’s design is perfectly modern on the inside, with both wired and wireless audio and a hi-res DAC. It looks like a great combination of old-school design and contemporary circuitry.
You spin me right round
As Han explains on Behance: “Reminiscent of a retro cassette tape, the design recreates the image of a tape spinning on a circular shelf as music plays, translating the materiality of the past into a contemporary object.” The front of the device features a perforated speaker grille and a spinning circle that looks like an old reel-to-reel tape recorder.
I think it’s strongly reminiscent of the FiiO KA15 portable DAC, which I happen to be testing at the moment. That pretends to be a cassette player – and it’s part of a retro-modern trend that’s 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 very much doubt the moving parts would be duplicated in any production model because of the cost, the hit on battery life and the 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 such as Silent Running, and of shows such as Space: 1999.
This isn’t the only fun audio design in Han’s portfolio: there are also some cool-looking wall-mounted speakers that wouldn’t look out of place in IKEA’s recent 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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