Tag Archives: speaker

NAK Studio Imagines a Hi-Fi Stack You Would Actually Want on Display

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Most Hi-Fi gear still looks like anonymous black rectangles, even in carefully designed living rooms. Serious listeners often hide their amps and speakers in cabinets because the hardware rarely matches the rest of the furniture, even when the sound is great. The default assumption is that audio equipment belongs out of sight, tolerated for its performance but not celebrated for its presence.

Antoine Brieux of NAK Studio designed a complete stack he would personally want at home, treating it as a thought experiment about what happens when an integrated amplifier, speakers, and turntable are drawn as one family from the start. Color, tactility, and proportions are treated as seriously as the signal path, so the system could earn a spot in the open rather than behind doors or under furniture.

Designer: Antoine Brieux (NAK Studio)

The integrated amplifier is a low, solid block with a ribbed cylinder grafted onto one corner, turning the usual volume knob into a full control column. That cylinder suggests precise, satisfying adjustments for volume, inputs, and tone, giving your hand a clear place to land instead of hunting for tiny knobs or touch buttons scattered across a cluttered front panel.

The tall monochrome display beside the cylinder shows track info, a big dB scale, and twin bar-graph meters dancing with the music. The list of inputs covers phono and TV to Bluetooth and USB, and a warm-to-cold tonal slider sits below, so the front of the amp feels like a calm, legible dashboard rather than a technical interface that demands constant attention or an instruction manual.

The compact speakers are each a rounded rectangle with a single driver and tweeter, but finished in mixable Pantone colors, letting you treat them as color accents in a room. You could pair teal with orange, or match a pair to a shelf or wall, so they become part of the space’s palette instead of something you try to hide or apologize for when guests visit.

The matching turntable sits on the same footprint as the amp, with exposed suspension pillars and a straight arm that echoes the cylinder theme. The three components stack visually into a tidy tower, making the whole listening setup feel intentional, almost like a piece of modular furniture for records and streaming alike, cohesive enough to anchor a sideboard or desk.

NAK Studio’s concept is not about chasing specs, but about imagining a Hi-Fi system that earns its place in the open. The controls invite touch, the colors play with the room, and the stack looks as considered as the music it is built to play. It starts to feel less like a fantasy and more like how audio gear should have evolved all along.

The post NAK Studio Imagines a Hi-Fi Stack You Would Actually Want on Display first appeared on Yanko Design.

NAK Studio Imagines a Hi-Fi Stack You Would Actually Want on Display

Posted on by

Most Hi-Fi gear still looks like anonymous black rectangles, even in carefully designed living rooms. Serious listeners often hide their amps and speakers in cabinets because the hardware rarely matches the rest of the furniture, even when the sound is great. The default assumption is that audio equipment belongs out of sight, tolerated for its performance but not celebrated for its presence.

Antoine Brieux of NAK Studio designed a complete stack he would personally want at home, treating it as a thought experiment about what happens when an integrated amplifier, speakers, and turntable are drawn as one family from the start. Color, tactility, and proportions are treated as seriously as the signal path, so the system could earn a spot in the open rather than behind doors or under furniture.

Designer: Antoine Brieux (NAK Studio)

The integrated amplifier is a low, solid block with a ribbed cylinder grafted onto one corner, turning the usual volume knob into a full control column. That cylinder suggests precise, satisfying adjustments for volume, inputs, and tone, giving your hand a clear place to land instead of hunting for tiny knobs or touch buttons scattered across a cluttered front panel.

The tall monochrome display beside the cylinder shows track info, a big dB scale, and twin bar-graph meters dancing with the music. The list of inputs covers phono and TV to Bluetooth and USB, and a warm-to-cold tonal slider sits below, so the front of the amp feels like a calm, legible dashboard rather than a technical interface that demands constant attention or an instruction manual.

The compact speakers are each a rounded rectangle with a single driver and tweeter, but finished in mixable Pantone colors, letting you treat them as color accents in a room. You could pair teal with orange, or match a pair to a shelf or wall, so they become part of the space’s palette instead of something you try to hide or apologize for when guests visit.

The matching turntable sits on the same footprint as the amp, with exposed suspension pillars and a straight arm that echoes the cylinder theme. The three components stack visually into a tidy tower, making the whole listening setup feel intentional, almost like a piece of modular furniture for records and streaming alike, cohesive enough to anchor a sideboard or desk.

NAK Studio’s concept is not about chasing specs, but about imagining a Hi-Fi system that earns its place in the open. The controls invite touch, the colors play with the room, and the stack looks as considered as the music it is built to play. It starts to feel less like a fantasy and more like how audio gear should have evolved all along.

The post NAK Studio Imagines a Hi-Fi Stack You Would Actually Want on Display first appeared on Yanko Design.

Soundcore at CES 2026 Turns Everyday Spaces into Portable Sound and Cinema

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Personal entertainment has drifted out of fixed rooms and into commutes, bedrooms, trails, and backyards. People bounce between earbuds, smart speakers, and projectors, often juggling separate ecosystems that do not feel designed with each other in mind. The friction is no longer just sound quality, but how easily gear fits into those shifting contexts, from the desk where you need awareness, to the pillow where you need silence, to the field where you want a movie under the stars.

Soundcore’s CES 2026 lineup follows that drift. The AeroFit 2 Pro, Sleep A30 Special, Boom Go 3i, Nebula P1i, and Nebula X1 Pro aim to move with you rather than live in one place. The common thread is collapsing trade‑offs, open‑ear comfort and ANC in one pair of buds, tiny speakers with long battery life, and projectors that pack a theater into a handle‑equipped box, each tuned to a different moment when sound or vision matters.

Designer: Soundcore (Anker)

Soundcore AeroFit 2 Pro

AeroFit 2 Pro is built for people whose days swing between needing to hear the world and wanting to block it out. The five‑level ear‑hook can reposition the nozzle so the buds behave as open‑ear hooks during runs or desk work, then slide into a semi‑in‑ear ANC form when focus or isolation is needed, without swapping hardware or carrying two pairs.

The liquid‑silicone hooks and 56 degrees of articulation keep pressure off the canal for all‑day wear in open‑ear mode, while Adaptive ANC 3.0 checks noise up to 380,000 times per second and makes 180 adjustments per minute in ANC mode. The buds include 11.8 mm drivers, spatial audio with head tracking, LDAC support, IP55 rating, and differing battery lives, up to 7 hours and 34 with case in open‑ear, up to 5 hours and 24 with case in ANC.

Soundcore Sleep A30 Special

Sleep A30 Special takes over when the day ends and the noise does not. The triple noise reduction system combines active noise cancellation, passive blocking from the low‑profile fit, and adaptive snore masking that targets disruptive frequencies without making the room feel unnaturally silent. The ultra‑compact shape is tuned for side sleepers who usually cannot tolerate bulky earbuds pressing against a pillow overnight.

The earbuds tie into the Soundcore app to deliver Calm Sleep Stories directly, alongside AI brainwave tracks and white noise. The hardware is only half the story; the curated content and extended battery life let people build a consistent wind‑down routine, from reading in bed with subtle noise reduction to drifting off to a story without worrying about wires, over‑ear pressure, or keeping a phone nearby.

Soundcore Boom Go 3i

Boom Go 3i is the speaker that lives on a backpack strap rather than a shelf. The palm-sized form and 15 W output make a picnic or campsite feel less quiet without needing a huge cylinder. The 4,800 mAh battery offers up to 22 hours in Eco mode, so it can handle a weekend of light use without visiting a wall outlet, and it can lend some of its charge for emergency phone top‑ups.

The IP68 rating means it can handle dust, sand, and submersion, which is useful when it gets dropped in a stream or buried in a beach bag. The dual‑mode strap mounting system lets it hang or cinch tightly to a pack, bike, or tent pole, and the LED grille with diagonal light patterns makes it easy to spot in a dark campsite or stowed in the bottom of a gear pile.

Soundcore Nebula P1i

Nebula P1i is the projector for people who want movie‑night flexibility without a permanent ceiling mount. It offers 1080p resolution and 400 ANSI lumens, enough for dim‑room viewing, with a built‑in 0-12 degree tilt stand to aim at walls or screens without stacks of books. Official Netflix and Google TV support mean it behaves like a familiar streaming box, not a bare projector that needs extra hardware.

The flip‑open side speakers swing out for better stereo separation, turning a compact cube into a mini theater without extra cables. Intelligent Environment Adaptation 3.0 handles autofocus, keystone, and screen fit, so the projector can quickly lock onto whatever surface is available. It is the kind of device that can live in a closet until a rainy afternoon or impromptu game night makes a big picture suddenly appealing.

Soundcore Nebula X1 Pro

Nebula X1 Pro is the extreme end of the same idea, a mobile theater station on wheels. It uses a 3,500 ANSI‑lumen 4K triple‑laser engine with 110% Rec.2020 color, 5,000:1 native contrast, and 56,000:1 dynamic contrast, bright enough to throw a 200‑inch image outdoors at night. The integrated wireless 7.1.4 sound system, certified for Dolby Atmos, means the audio is as much a part of the experience as the picture.

The planned bundle adds a 200‑inch inflatable screen and a wireless pump that inflates in about five minutes and holds air without a constant blower, keeping the system quiet during viewing. Dual wireless microphones and AI spatial adaptation handle setup, tuning sound and image to the space. Together, the projector and screen turn any patch of ground into a temporary cinema without generators, scaffolding, or separate speakers cluttering the site.

Soundcore at CES 2026: Entertainment That Travels With You

These five products sketch a day‑long arc: AeroFit 2 Pro for the commute and office, Sleep A30 Special for the hours when noise is unwelcome, Boom Go 3i for the trails and parks in between, and Nebula P1i and X1 Pro for turning small rooms and big fields into makeshift theaters. The common thread is not just wattage or resolution, but designs that respect where people actually listen and watch now, moving with them rather than asking them to stay put.

The post Soundcore at CES 2026 Turns Everyday Spaces into Portable Sound and Cinema first appeared on Yanko Design.

LG xBoom Stage 501 Uses AI to Turn Any Song Into Instant Karaoke

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CES 2026 is full of portable speakers that blur together until you find a pair built around specific moments in your week. Most promise bass and battery, but few commit to a clear identity beyond a spec sheet. LG’s xBoom Stage 501 and xBoom Blast are different, less about covering every scenario and more about owning the moments they were designed for with enough confidence to make those scenarios better.

Stage 501 is tuned for late-night living-room chaos, karaoke marathons, and indoor parties that spill onto patios. Blast is built for long days outside, beach trips, camping weekends, and backyard gatherings that start in the afternoon and refuse to end until the sun comes back. Both run LG’s AI-driven xBoom platform with will.i.am’s signature sound, both pack 99 Wh batteries that outlast most playlists, and both treat lighting and sound as inseparable parts of the same vibe.

Designer: will.i.am x LG

xBoom Stage 501

A living room slowly turns into a karaoke bar as friends arrive, drinks appear, and someone inevitably reaches for a mic. Stage 501 is already in the corner, its wedge-shaped cabinet angled toward the room with LEDs pulsing in sync. It pushes up to 220 W when plugged in or 160 W on battery, with dual 2.5-inch woofers, full-range drivers, and Peerless tweeters handling everything from bass drops to high notes.

AI Karaoke Master turns any playlist into a karaoke queue, stripping or lowering vocals and even shifting pitch so people can sing solo or duet with the original artist without hunting for special tracks. It uses deep learning trained on over 10,000 songs, which means it works on virtually anything in your library. AI Sound and Space Calibration Pro analyze the room and the song, nudging EQ and output.

The top panel becomes a small control deck during the night, with a phone resting in the slot for lyrics, mics plugged in, and a big central dial handling volume and effects. The five-sided design can stand upright, lie horizontally, tilt, or even go on a tripod, so the same speaker that lives under a TV on weekdays can move to the patio or a rented hall when someone’s birthday rolls around.

xBoom Blast

A beach day or campsite is different, power outlets are far away, and the playlist needs to last longer than the sun. Blast shows up as the tall, cylindrical speaker that gets dropped next to the cooler, its 99 Wh battery promising up to 35 hours of music. It still delivers 220 W of output with three 3.25-inch drivers and three passive radiators, so it does not sound like a compromise.

IP67 water- and dust-proofing, edge bumpers, and military-standard testing mean nobody panics when sand, spilled drinks, or sudden rain show up. The side rope handle makes it easy to carry vertically through crowds, while the top handle covers quick moves between spots. AI Lighting and AI Sound keep the LEDs and EQ in sync with whatever is playing, turning grass or sand into a small stage.

At 12 kg, Blast is not exactly light, but that weight holds the passive radiators and battery that get you through a full weekend outdoors. The dual-handle system and rugged shell acknowledge that party speakers live rougher lives than most tech, bouncing around trunks, getting set on uneven ground, and soaking up whatever the weather decides to do. Blast feels like it was designed for those realities.

LG at CES 2026

xBoom by will.i.am is less about one do-everything box and more about matching sound to the way people actually move through their week. Stage 501 anchors indoor parties and karaoke nights, while Blast follows you outdoors. Seeing them at CES 2026 hints at a future where portable speakers are defined as much by the nights and trips they are built for as by their wattage.

The post LG xBoom Stage 501 Uses AI to Turn Any Song Into Instant Karaoke first appeared on Yanko Design.

Samsung Taps Bouroullec to Design Speakers That Blend Into Rooms

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CES 2026 is full of screens and soundbars, but what stands out are speakers that look like they belong in a living room, even when they are silent. Samsung’s Music Studio 7 and Music Studio 5 are Wi-Fi speakers shaped around Erwan Bouroullec’s dot motif, designed to sit comfortably on shelves and consoles while quietly handling the serious audio work, from hi-resolution streaming to multi-device spatial sound.

Music Studio 7 (LS70H) is the tall, immersive one, and Music Studio 5 (LS50H) is the compact, gallery-friendly sibling. Both share the same circular eye on the front, a dot that hints at the origin of sound, but they play different roles at home. One anchors a room with 3.1.1-channel spatial audio, the other slips into smaller spaces without giving up clarity or presence.

Designer: Erwan Bouroullec

An evening where Music Studio 7 is handling everything, from a playlist to a late-night movie, makes the 3.1.1-channel architecture clear. Left, front, right, and top-firing drivers build a tall soundstage that wraps around the room, while Samsung’s pattern control and immersive waveguide keep effects and vocals precisely placed. AI Dynamic Bass Control keeps the low end deep but tidy, so the room feels full without the furniture rattling or neighbors complaining.

Quiet listening sessions bring hi-res playback into focus. The speaker processes up to 24-bit/96 kHz, so subtle details in acoustic tracks or film scores stay intact instead of getting smoothed over. Spotify lossless streaming and Spotify Tap over Wi-Fi let you move from phone to speaker with a tap, or start a recommendation directly on the device, which makes spontaneous listening feel less like managing gadgets and more like just pressing play.

Music Studio 5 lives in a different kind of space, on a shelf or sideboard where size matters. It uses a 4-inch woofer and dual tweeters with a built-in waveguide to keep sound balanced and crisp, even at lower volumes. AI Dynamic Bass Control deepens low frequencies without turning everything into a thump, so it works as well for background jazz while you cook as it does for focused listening at a desk.

A weekend movie where the speakers and a Samsung TV share the work shows how Q-Symphony handles multi-device sound. The TV and Music Studio units play together instead of one replacing the other, letting dialogue come from the screen while spatial effects spread to the speakers. Wi-Fi casting, streaming services, voice control, and Bluetooth via Samsung’s Seamless Codec sit in the background, making it easy to move sound between rooms or devices without thinking too hard about the path.

The dot-driven forms and soft colors make the speakers feel like part of the furniture, not gadgets that need to be hidden when guests arrive. Seeing them at CES 2026 hints at a direction where home audio is judged as much on how it shapes a room as on how it measures in a lab, and Music Studio 7 and 5 are built to live comfortably in both worlds, treating sound as something that belongs in a space rather than something you tolerate until you can afford to hide it.

The post Samsung Taps Bouroullec to Design Speakers That Blend Into Rooms first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Speaker Is Made From Sand (And It’s Actually Genius)

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When you think of high-end speakers, your mind probably goes to sleek black boxes, glossy wood finishes, or maybe some minimalist Scandinavian design. But what if I told you the most interesting speaker I’ve seen lately is made from 3D-printed sand and hangs from steel cables like a piece of kinetic sculpture? Meet the Econik 1851, and trust me, it’s not your typical audio equipment.

Designer Anton Erbenich has created something that feels like it belongs in both a modern art museum and an audiophile’s listening room. The Econik 1851 is an active loudspeaker that throws convention out the window, starting with its most striking feature: the entire enclosure is 3D-printed from quartz sand. Yes, actual sand. The result is this gorgeous, rough-textured surface that looks almost ancient, like some kind of minimalist pottery that somehow ended up with speaker drivers embedded in it.

Designer: Anton Erbenich

But this isn’t just about aesthetics (though let’s be honest, it’s stunning to look at). The quartz sand construction serves a real purpose. That mineral texture you see? It’s not just for show. The material helps reduce micro-vibrations that can mess with sound quality. Audiophiles obsess over these tiny details because even the smallest vibrations can color the audio in ways you don’t want. By using this unconventional material, Erbenich found a way to solve a technical problem while creating something visually distinctive.

The shape itself is equally intentional. Look at those spherical forms, stacked like a quirky snowman with side protrusions that give it an almost organic, pod-like appearance. That nearly spherical interior volume isn’t random either. It’s designed to reduce standing waves, those annoying acoustic phenomena that happen when sound bounces around inside a speaker cabinet in ways that create peaks and nulls in the frequency response. Basically, the shape helps the sound stay cleaner and more accurate.

Then there’s the suspension system, which might be my favorite part of the whole design. The speakers hang from steel cables attached to an elegant curved stand that looks like a fishing rod crossed with a piece of modern sculpture. This isn’t just a cool visual trick. By suspending the speakers this way, Erbenich has essentially decoupled them from any surface vibrations. They float in space, isolated and free to do their acoustic thing without interference. Plus, it makes the whole setup feel weightless despite the solid, substantial nature of those sand-printed enclosures.

As an active speaker system, the Econik 1851 has all the amplification and signal processing built right in. This is increasingly common in high-end audio, but it’s still worth noting because it means setup is remarkably simple. You don’t need to match it with separate amplifiers or worry about speaker cable quality debates. Just plug in a power cable, send it your audio signal, and you’re ready to go. It’s the kind of thoughtful design decision that makes sophisticated technology more accessible.

What really gets me about this design is how it manages to be both bold and subtle at the same time. Yes, it’s a conversation piece. You’re not hiding these speakers in a cabinet or blending them into your décor. But that sandy, neutral tone and the organic shapes mean they don’t scream for attention the way some statement pieces do. They have presence without being loud about it (pun intended).

This feels like the kind of design that bridges multiple worlds. Tech enthusiasts will appreciate the engineering solutions. Design lovers will obsess over the form and material choices. And even people who just want their spaces to feel interesting will find something appealing about these sculptural objects that happen to play music. In a market saturated with either ultra-modern tech aesthetics or retro throwback designs, the Econik 1851 carves out its own territory. It feels timeless in a way that’s hard to achieve, like it could have been designed yesterday or decades from now. That’s the mark of really thoughtful design work: when function and form merge so seamlessly that you can’t imagine it any other way.

The post This Speaker Is Made From Sand (And It’s Actually Genius) first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Monument-Inspired Speaker Concept Stands Tall on Your Shelf

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Most wireless speakers fall into two visual camps: squat cylinders that look like tech, or anonymous black boxes that try to disappear. There is a third path, treating a speaker like a small piece of architecture in the room, something that stands tall and holds its ground even when it is silent. Sonique is a vertical aesthetic speaker that leans into that idea, more road sentinel than soda can, more monument than gadget.

Sonique is a speaker inspired by global monuments, aiming to embody the idea of a road sentinel that seamlessly integrates artistry and functionality. The form language borrows from tall, narrow towers and arches, and the goal is to create an object you would be happy to leave on a shelf even when it is off, because it reads as a small, calm monolith rather than a piece of hardware waiting to be told what to do.

Designer: Eshaan Gupta

The basic form is a tall, rounded-top shell with a recessed fabric front and a small control strip at the bottom. The vertical posture lifts the drivers and makes the speaker feel more like a portal or doorway than a box. The controls are reduced to a simple strip with minus, play/pause, and plus, integrated into the front plane, so they do not break the silhouette or shout for attention when you are not using them.

The inspiration keywords, unbalanced, monolithic, and timeless, show up in how Sonique stands in a room. Unbalanced in its narrow footprint, tall stance, and slight backward lean that creates an asymmetrical, deliberate posture. Monolithic in the continuous outer shell, timeless in the fabric and soft grey palette, avoiding obvious tech trends. The speaker is meant to be a quiet marker in a space, a little tower of sound.

The technical block lists a Class-D amplifier with 2 × 30 W RMS output, a 60 Hz–20 kHz frequency response, splash and dust resistance, and up to 18 hours of playback at moderate volume. This puts it in the realm of a capable, battery-powered home speaker, with enough low-end extension for most music and enough stamina to move around the house without living on a charger or needing to stay tethered to an outlet.

Sonique fits into everyday scenes, on a bookshelf in a reading corner, on a sideboard in a living room, or on a desk as a vertical counterpoint to a monitor. The combination of fabric, soft light, and vertical form makes it feel more like a small lamp or sculpture than a piece of audio gear. The splash resistance hints at kitchen or bathroom use, where a bit of steam or a stray splash should not be a problem or an excuse to hide it away.

Treating a speaker like a road sentinel nudges the object out of the black box category and into the realm of things you curate in a room. Sonique suggests that you can have a plausible, battery-powered Class-D speaker that also behaves like a small monument on your shelf, a reminder that sound hardware does not always have to look like sound hardware to do its job well, and that a speaker can hold space in a room the way architecture does, vertical, quiet, and present.

The post This Monument-Inspired Speaker Concept Stands Tall on Your Shelf first appeared on Yanko Design.

This 500-Million-Year-Old Nautilus Shell Is Now a Speaker

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The Sazae Radio was a Japanese novelty radio built into a turban shell, sold by lottery in 2016 with just 100 units available for 8,350 applicants. The odds were 83.5 to one. Losing that lottery left a maker named hide-key with a simple choice: accept the disappointment or build something better. The DIY pivot turned into the Steampunk Nautilus, a haptic speaker project that takes a similar idea and pushes it considerably further.

The choice was a nautilus shell, a living fossil that has barely changed in 500 million years. Discovering that its English name matched Jules Verne’s submarine sealed the decision. The goal became not just a speaker, but a piece of audio art with three rules: steampunk-kintsugi repair, where metal celebrates the shell’s imperfections, conservation-minded reversibility, where every adhesive can be removed with acetone, and a haptic drive that turns the shell itself into a vibrating diaphragm.

Designer: hide-key

Early experiments failed. A massive sea snail shell refused to vibrate, too thick and heavy for a small exciter to drive. The nautilus, by contrast, worked immediately. Its thin, lightweight structure, built for buoyancy, behaves like a violin body or speaker cone, with internal ribs adding resonance without mass. The project quietly became a study in bioacoustics, where shell biology dictated whether the fossil could sing, and heavy shells behaved like bricks.

The build starts with a chipped shell and leans into the damage. The broken area is traced, and a 1.2 mm aluminum sheet is hammered and filed to match the organic curve, polished to a mirror, and attached with cyanoacrylate and brass-colored epoxy putty. All adhesives were chosen so they can be removed with acetone, leaving the shell intact underneath. Reversibility was treated as a hard constraint, respecting the specimen while giving it a new function.

The haptic core moved from a boring internal speaker to a vibration exciter mounted in a custom silicone cartridge that fits the shell’s living chamber. Water displacement measured the volume at just 50 cc, and Shore 15A silicone was poured to create a perfect seat. A transparent hair band acts as a hidden pull tab, and a silicone cap hides the exciter and diffuses its faint blue LED into a heartbeat-like glow deep in the spiral.

The base is a Quince burl chosen for its red, white, and black grain that echoes the shell’s pattern. A Magic Circle layout of brass bushings lets the shell’s angle be changed by moving three brass pillars. Threaded brass rods with ball nuts support the shell, and a drop of soft UV resin on each contact point prevents buzzing, making the heavy fossil appear to float while staying mechanically quiet.

Three hidden modes emerge. Holding the shell in your hands for bone-conducted haptic listening, shifting the exciter between internal and external mounts to change the sound from lo-fi radio to a sharper, more direct tone, and the dream of a stereo pair if a second shell appears. The Steampunk Nautilus turns a broken specimen into a reversible, vibrating instrument that asks you to feel the music as much as hear it, turning disappointment from a lottery into something tactile, strange, and surprisingly beautiful.

The post This 500-Million-Year-Old Nautilus Shell Is Now a Speaker first appeared on Yanko Design.

This 500-Million-Year-Old Nautilus Shell Is Now a Speaker

Posted on by

The Sazae Radio was a Japanese novelty radio built into a turban shell, sold by lottery in 2016 with just 100 units available for 8,350 applicants. The odds were 83.5 to one. Losing that lottery left a maker named hide-key with a simple choice: accept the disappointment or build something better. The DIY pivot turned into the Steampunk Nautilus, a haptic speaker project that takes a similar idea and pushes it considerably further.

The choice was a nautilus shell, a living fossil that has barely changed in 500 million years. Discovering that its English name matched Jules Verne’s submarine sealed the decision. The goal became not just a speaker, but a piece of audio art with three rules: steampunk-kintsugi repair, where metal celebrates the shell’s imperfections, conservation-minded reversibility, where every adhesive can be removed with acetone, and a haptic drive that turns the shell itself into a vibrating diaphragm.

Designer: hide-key

Early experiments failed. A massive sea snail shell refused to vibrate, too thick and heavy for a small exciter to drive. The nautilus, by contrast, worked immediately. Its thin, lightweight structure, built for buoyancy, behaves like a violin body or speaker cone, with internal ribs adding resonance without mass. The project quietly became a study in bioacoustics, where shell biology dictated whether the fossil could sing, and heavy shells behaved like bricks.

The build starts with a chipped shell and leans into the damage. The broken area is traced, and a 1.2 mm aluminum sheet is hammered and filed to match the organic curve, polished to a mirror, and attached with cyanoacrylate and brass-colored epoxy putty. All adhesives were chosen so they can be removed with acetone, leaving the shell intact underneath. Reversibility was treated as a hard constraint, respecting the specimen while giving it a new function.

The haptic core moved from a boring internal speaker to a vibration exciter mounted in a custom silicone cartridge that fits the shell’s living chamber. Water displacement measured the volume at just 50 cc, and Shore 15A silicone was poured to create a perfect seat. A transparent hair band acts as a hidden pull tab, and a silicone cap hides the exciter and diffuses its faint blue LED into a heartbeat-like glow deep in the spiral.

The base is a Quince burl chosen for its red, white, and black grain that echoes the shell’s pattern. A Magic Circle layout of brass bushings lets the shell’s angle be changed by moving three brass pillars. Threaded brass rods with ball nuts support the shell, and a drop of soft UV resin on each contact point prevents buzzing, making the heavy fossil appear to float while staying mechanically quiet.

Three hidden modes emerge. Holding the shell in your hands for bone-conducted haptic listening, shifting the exciter between internal and external mounts to change the sound from lo-fi radio to a sharper, more direct tone, and the dream of a stereo pair if a second shell appears. The Steampunk Nautilus turns a broken specimen into a reversible, vibrating instrument that asks you to feel the music as much as hear it, turning disappointment from a lottery into something tactile, strange, and surprisingly beautiful.

The post This 500-Million-Year-Old Nautilus Shell Is Now a Speaker first appeared on Yanko Design.

This 500-Million-Year-Old Nautilus Shell Is Now a Speaker

Posted on by

The Sazae Radio was a Japanese novelty radio built into a turban shell, sold by lottery in 2016 with just 100 units available for 8,350 applicants. The odds were 83.5 to one. Losing that lottery left a maker named hide-key with a simple choice: accept the disappointment or build something better. The DIY pivot turned into the Steampunk Nautilus, a haptic speaker project that takes a similar idea and pushes it considerably further.

The choice was a nautilus shell, a living fossil that has barely changed in 500 million years. Discovering that its English name matched Jules Verne’s submarine sealed the decision. The goal became not just a speaker, but a piece of audio art with three rules: steampunk-kintsugi repair, where metal celebrates the shell’s imperfections, conservation-minded reversibility, where every adhesive can be removed with acetone, and a haptic drive that turns the shell itself into a vibrating diaphragm.

Designer: hide-key

Early experiments failed. A massive sea snail shell refused to vibrate, too thick and heavy for a small exciter to drive. The nautilus, by contrast, worked immediately. Its thin, lightweight structure, built for buoyancy, behaves like a violin body or speaker cone, with internal ribs adding resonance without mass. The project quietly became a study in bioacoustics, where shell biology dictated whether the fossil could sing, and heavy shells behaved like bricks.

The build starts with a chipped shell and leans into the damage. The broken area is traced, and a 1.2 mm aluminum sheet is hammered and filed to match the organic curve, polished to a mirror, and attached with cyanoacrylate and brass-colored epoxy putty. All adhesives were chosen so they can be removed with acetone, leaving the shell intact underneath. Reversibility was treated as a hard constraint, respecting the specimen while giving it a new function.

The haptic core moved from a boring internal speaker to a vibration exciter mounted in a custom silicone cartridge that fits the shell’s living chamber. Water displacement measured the volume at just 50 cc, and Shore 15A silicone was poured to create a perfect seat. A transparent hair band acts as a hidden pull tab, and a silicone cap hides the exciter and diffuses its faint blue LED into a heartbeat-like glow deep in the spiral.

The base is a Quince burl chosen for its red, white, and black grain that echoes the shell’s pattern. A Magic Circle layout of brass bushings lets the shell’s angle be changed by moving three brass pillars. Threaded brass rods with ball nuts support the shell, and a drop of soft UV resin on each contact point prevents buzzing, making the heavy fossil appear to float while staying mechanically quiet.

Three hidden modes emerge. Holding the shell in your hands for bone-conducted haptic listening, shifting the exciter between internal and external mounts to change the sound from lo-fi radio to a sharper, more direct tone, and the dream of a stereo pair if a second shell appears. The Steampunk Nautilus turns a broken specimen into a reversible, vibrating instrument that asks you to feel the music as much as hear it, turning disappointment from a lottery into something tactile, strange, and surprisingly beautiful.

The post This 500-Million-Year-Old Nautilus Shell Is Now a Speaker first appeared on Yanko Design.