KEF's Muon speakers: 253 pounds of aluminum, no sense of decency
By Erik Hanson 
posted Apr 24th 2007 10:47AM
posted Apr 24th 2007 10:47AM
Catering to the highest of the high-end in speakers will grab the attention of both consumers and designers, and KEF has contracted Ross Lovegrove, who designed such throw-aways as the Walkman and the iMac, to create this spendy new "Muon" series of speakers. These curvy monsters are carved out of a six-foot block of solid aluminum using computer-aided manufacturing and take a week to create. The four-way, eight-speaker setups weigh 253 pounds each, and will retail for £70,000 ($140,500 USD). If you've got the pocketbook, better have your butler write out a check right quick, as the edition is limited to 100 pairs.
yes that's it sir!.....instead of potentially saving thousands of lives through charity, please please spend your money on these speakers!
Purchasing these speakers will encourage economic growth. As harsh as it sounds, greediness generates wealth, altruism does not.
I assume that once you've bought enough bread and water to survive, your remaining incomes goes to charity, right? I mean, anything else (like, say, owning a computer to post criticisms on Engadget) would make you a hypocrite...
If people have earned the money, they can do what they damn well please with it. It's not your place to decree what people with hundreds of thousands of dollars in disposable income do with their money, in the same way it's not that beggar on the corner of your street's place to decide how you spend your money. And I bet you get offended when he asks you for any spare change.
Most people who have the money to buy speakers like this probably donate to charities already. They may do it because they're good people or to avoid paying higher taxes.
"Jeeves!"
Yeah, 100 pairs of £70,000 speakers are really going to stimulate longterm growth and not promote consumer idiocy. Let's view these yuppy-fetted incongruous eyesores for what they are: an experiment in retarded hyper-luxury.
I'm going to set my pair up around my bentley and then try to listen to my soul ache.
Yeah, but do they sound good? Or I guess the type of people who would consider buying these things don't really care all that much.
Neilson; are you responding to my comment? I think you meant to respond to someone else as what you say has nothing to do with what I said.
who wrote this article? ross lovgrove neither designed the walkman nor the imac. pure nonsense.
I was under the impression that he DID design the Walkman, but he definitely DIDN'T design the iMac.
All I can say is I WANT A SET!!!!!!
Lovegrove certainly did not design the iMac, you're right.
Not sure about the Walkman, but he did work with the chief Designer at Apple and suggested materials and colors for the iMac... whether he had a hand in its design is not the question, but what % of the final product was his vision.
Highest of the High end? are we just basing this off the price?
if so, you must have heard of the Magico Ultimate. 800lb, $229,000 a pair. :)
The speakers are excessive; the article is pure rubbish.
Ross most certainly did not design the Sony Walkman or the iMac.
Nobutoshi Kihara designed the Walkman. Hell, Engadget wrote an article on his retirement!!
http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/10/mr-walkman-walks-away/
Jonathan Ive and his team designed the iMac (all of them).
http://www.designmuseum.org/design/jonathan-ive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ive
Poor effort, Engadget...
I think Ross did play a role in the design of Sony Walkmans (perhaps not the first one), and apple computers, see the following article.
http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/lovegrove.html
"in the early 80’s he worked as a designer for frog design in west germany on projects such as walkmans for sony, computers for apple computers, later moved to paris as a consultant to knoll international, becoming author of the highly successful alessandri office system.
"
Also there is an interesting talk by Ross in TED conference. See below.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/27?gclid=CNKsg-KK8osCFSQ4TAodb1gxNw
Reminds me of this house I worked on once. Dude had $300,000 worth of speakers installed in his pool & patio area, or so he thought. When I took a closer look I realized that several of the "speakers" were just empty boxes painted to look nice, with speaker-wire terminals glued on the back and about 3-ft of speaker wire that went nowhere... Only a couple of speakers in each stack (there was 6 huge stacks around the pool and 4 more smaller ones near the house on the deck/patio) were actual real, working speakers... They were nice, and the whole system sounded pretty good, but it was maybe $10-15k worth of speakers... not $300K. Dude got JACKED.
I'm not a great fan of KEF speakers myself (they sell entry level examples at Target), but I do admire the CNC work that went into machining those cases. I've been around some of that equipment in mills, and it isn't cheap, and the technicians who program the routines could be considered artists for what they do. Are these speakers overpriced? - more than likely. But do they represent a higher level of workmanship? - definitely. Now, back to my (vastly less expensive) five matched vintage Marantz Imperial 6g's and "Dark Side of the Moon" on SACD...
KEF does lower end stuff too, but that doesn't mean they don't know how to produce high end stuff. B&W has cheap speakers too, and then they have ones like the Nautilus series.
But... to be honest I'm not that fond of the design. Probably the photos don't do justice, but I'd prefered cheaper KEF models design wise.
Also I fear that too much compromises have been made because of the design. With speakers the first priority should be the sound quality... then only comes design. Most companies (and buyers) don't get that however.
Just one question: can I get these at Best Buy?