December
2018

Trending:lifestyle

Living in style. The two young designers of Deeptime Ltd. from the Czech Republic believe in it. They also believe in organic shapes and exploiting hi-tech 3D printing to build their 3-piece speaker system from the most ubiquitous material on the planet: sand. The 87dB passive Spirula speaker fits a 3" bamboo-fibre widebander into an inert sealed enclosure for 75Hz-20kHz bandwidth. Like Vivid's tapered absorbers, the continuously narrowing always round Spirula cabinet spirals down upon itself to a point. Three metal cones defy gravity.

The matching Thunderstone subwoofer packs a 5.75" downfiring woofer into a triple-ported enclosure plus 110 watts of class D for itself, 60 watts for the Spirula sats. This completes bandwidth to 40Hz and turns the threesome into an active system with one 3.5" analog stereo and one 3.5" digital Toslink port. Bluetooth aptX and AAC is there as well. Spirula measures just 208 x 117 x 222mm LxWxH. Thunderstone does 372 x 372 x 239mm. The monitors weigh 2.4kg, the powered sub 6.5kg. For added ambience, an amber light shines through the Thunderstone ports and increases lumen with volume. This becomes the Deeptime system's power indicator. The dual-concentric volume control rings on the Thunderstone are magnetic Hall Effect sensors for crackle-free longevity. The outer ring adjusts the bass, the inner wheel overall system output. Being made of anodized aluminium, this twin controller double-tasks as heat sink for the power modules to get comfortably warm to the touch.

Coolest lifestyle hifi in the universe? In this galaxy, almost certainly. Which is why only a limited number of sets will be built. Check their website for details.