Related Articles
BARCELONA, Spain — There’s a vast number of new phone accessories here at Mobile World Congress — cases, clips, and camera widgets galore — but I’m willing to bet I don’t see a more lavish or expensive one than this.
German company Avantgarde Acoustics is here showing off its new Zero 1 speaker, which as the headline gleefully informs you, will set you back an eyebrow-raising 10,000 Euro ($13,750, £8,250).
Weighing 40kg, this isn’t the kind of smartphone speaker you take on a picnic. It’s just over a metre tall (3.4 feet), and made of “a polyurethane-based sandwich-structured integral rigid foam” in black or white.
Inside its mighty frame is everything you need for a full audiophile experience streaming off your mobile — digital processors, analogue-to-digital converters, power amps, and the horn loudspeaker. Its digital processing is accurate to one millionth of a second, according to the company.
In fact there are two horns, each driven by a 50W amp, backed up by a 400W bass woofer. It’s impossible to give you any sense if it’s really any good, having seen it at a noisy trade show, but it’ll certainly make a statement in your living room.
My favourite feature is the remote control. It’s a foot-long baton of solid aluminium with four tiny little buttons on the end. Completely ridiculous, and not a little reminiscent of a lightsaber.
You can absorb more technical jargon at Avantgarde’s Web site, which surprisingly does not have an option to put one of these on your credit card.
Nick Hide/CNET
