We're pretty sharp on the fairy dust market, and while it no doubt goes for a premium in certain parts of the world, there's still a serious surcharge being added in here for transparency. Japan's own Hario is catering yet again to the affluent among us with its Harion speaker set, which boasts a subwoofer, two mid-range drivers and a pair of acrylic tweeters -- all encased in heat-resistant glass. Of course, the company is no stranger to pumping out exclusive glass-based kit and charging a wad for it, as this particular package will run customers a staggering 16 million yen, or just north of $168,000. Oh, but if you and ten others dial in right now, they can be produced and sold for just 10 million yen each ($105,030). Economies of scale, now that's good stuff.
[Via
Gearlog]
posted Nov 29th 2008 5:26PM
now there's a chirstmas present.
Looks like something out of "Forbidden Planet". Watch out for the ID! :O
It's so powerful, it can shatter windows!!
Too bad it's made of glass :(
I want I want! I hope I win!!!
Dang... not the Engadget giveaway....
wow
Will it blend?
That is the question.
If you decorated your house with an avant-garde theme with liberal use of glass and reflective metallic surfaces with examples of surrealist paintings on walls, this would blend right in.
...Oh, I see what you mean there XD
How in the world did this get highest ranked?
Engadget's comments have officially hit ROCK. BOTTOM.
It will! If you can put the whole house in the blender :)
FUGLY, Don't like it, I recommend nobody buy this, FUGLY
Proffessional
Fusion Fuzo
NICE :P
It actually looks like something aliens would be wielding when they have abducted a human.
lol, Man, I fucking want to pop your eyes out of your balloon head, if you know what I mean.
still FUGLY, Thats horrible looks like it was designed for a FUGLY apple machine, but they say curiosity killed the FUGLY cat,
Looks FUGLY to me, which nobody will buy it
@ saad rabia
yes, looking at is killing my eyes, cant believe somebody would design something this fugly
You haven't looked in the mirror recently have you?????
Yes, and the mirror on this products legs, is FUGLY
Professional
Fusion Fuzo
you know, passing the computertraining.com test doesn't make you an IT professional.
@Fusion: You're awesome...
...lol
@the rest of you: Arguing with a moron on the internet is like winning in the special Olympics - at the end of the day, you're still a retard.
@ Davin Black
And you are the second last guy in the race, right in front of Fusion
And Davin, those who compete in the Special Olympics are to be respected for not giving up hope and life despite being disable and all the hardships and sometimes social stigma that come with it, their courage and spirit are commendable and is an inspiration to us all. Tell you what, you don't even deserve to be in the race.
So, when my house bursts into flames and I stagger ablazed through my apartment, expelling horribly distorted screams of uttermost agony into the thundering inferno that surrounds me, I can still listen to "Light my fire" from The Doors?
...
Where's the order form?
That's what hell's going to be like.
While I agreed the styling is ... um, an acquired taste? ... and the pricing "limiting" it would have better served the Engadget audience to at least TRY to say why this is supposed to be worth the money. THEN make fun of it, if that floats yer boat.
$168,000 and theyre not even wireless???
Wireless is for cheap speakers. This sort of system is wired with some $5000 cables that have been made out of space shuttle materials, blessed by African high priests and holy virgins, to make the electrons flow better in one direction.
Seriously though, you usually hook up this sort of speakers to some very seriously and big high end amp, and the buyer wants to decide himself which amp. And of course you use very good cables.
I think 100 audiophiles just died.
@ mitch,
Only 100? I hope more. Those pretentious douchebags.
@DT
I resent that...
If you plan to spend $168,000 on a set of speakers, better spend them on charity. You can get awesome speaker set for $5,000 and donate the rest to a hospital, making lots of xmas presents.
If you can afford $168,000 speakers, you can probably afford them (hopefully sounds and looks much better than 5k ones) and the aforementioned $163,000 donation.
dam orphans get evrything if you wont to donate donate to me!
They look cool, yes. But for this sort of cash a sub/sat system? Speakers of this price class should have subwoofer dwarfing bass, without using a subwoofer. This thing looks more like a designer piece than something for serious audio reproduction. I'd stick with Isophon and the likes.
That costs more money, than my boat!
If your profession involves high-end music recording and you're prone to disastrous home/studio fires, this could actually be a bargain. You can save hundreds of millions of yen from potentially lost speaker systems!
I bet it costs like under a grand to make the whole thing... that's some serious profit right there.
and imagine these breaking during delivery lol
$168,000 for a speaker set....wow. This takes the cake, and the ice cream too!
wake me up when it goes down to $100
Let me pull the plug, it'll be cheaper..
Madness!
THIS IS HEAT RESISTANT!!!!!!!!!!
That's all swell and good, but do they have an Apple logo?
That'll be an extra $10,000.
It's always amusing when every so often an engadget scrote bag puts some expensive piece of gear in front of the mouth breathing, bargain-shopping masses and then thinks he has the snark cred to be implying it's stupid because it's so expensive when it's simply a product not intended for the demographic reading the blog.
Go back to the more typical engadget updates - like black friday "giveaways" of mediocre crap that your office got as freebies, or counting the seconds until the next time the apple store is down.
Fuck that noise.
If it's an a/v or computer-related product, it makes sense for an a/v or computer-related site to talk about it. If I wanted to solely hear about affordable products, I'd switch over to the electronic section of Consumer Reports or a like-minded site.
Just because someone can't afford it doesn't mean they can't say whether or not it's a complete waste of money. As if I give a shit about glass being heat-resistant; all glass (being made in heat) is heat resistant to a point, and that's a temperature that I wouldn't expose my non-glass speakers to in the first place. You can't tell me that there's a practical advantage to owning these that merit its price tag - and I wouldn't want you to, either. They weren't built to really be practical, in much the same way that a Rembrandt painting isn't "useful".
Unfortunately these speakers, unlike works of art, don't have the benefit of appreciating in value, therefore making them a complete and utter waste of money. Even the people who buy these would acknowledge that they're a waste.
But can it run Crysis?
Yes, and so can every other speaker
Fairy dust? At that price I want whole fairies!
Danger Will Robinson!
i had a chance to hear these. they sound like $80.000 speakers, at best.
Can you differ speakers that cost $5,000 and $160,000 in a blind test?
Naaaw, in my opinion they sound like 64,350 $ speakers max.
But apart for the stupid price, I think they are bloody horrible looking things: try to imagine them covered with the dust that always gets stuck to HIFI components and the few dead flies that will get trapped in and around the glass, and those filthy greasy cable hanging down from the middle of them (/great design that)and the stains from last party's martinis and last night vomit.
Naah , I would definitely never give more than 6 grands for these.
The $168,000 speakers sound like money shooting out of a cannon.
Just cause it costs more than I make in a year doesn't mean it's worth a shit.
Only a rich prick would buy something as useless as this.
You think this thing is useless? I think iPhone for $1000 is useless.
Looks like they have been taking notes from Art Lebedev's overpriced BS.
At least Lebedev usually tries to design around function. These are just pointless. I bet in a "sound-off" they perform above-average at best.
With Art, you know your money is going into design and development. $1600 for an articulately crafted and designed low-production run item with top-end tech is incredibly reasonable. You just think it's unreasonably priced because you think it's marketed to you, where it's actually marketed to production studios and artists. $160,000 is an entirely different ball game, by a count of 100. You could maybe muster an idea that these speakers cost upwards of $1500 in materials, maybe.
This much money, even for an audiophile luxury item, is far too much. I'm just a bit surprised you picked a reasonably priced item to compare these behemoth speakers with.
@Tom: I doubt that any studio would buy this sort of gear. They have different speakers and priorities for that.
@ kadajawi:
That reference was pointed towards the keyboard, not the speakers. Production studios and artists are what the Optimus Keyboard is aimed at.
They forgot to put the Lava Lamp goo inside!
Heat resistant, yes. Shatter proof, no. At least the glass is recyclable and can be turned into pickle jars.
@Shinigami;
That's why it's not $1000, and it still would be useful.
Id much rather have these :)
http://soundlab-speakers.com/ministat.htm
Disgusting,both looks & the price.
Is that the ScanSpeak relevator tweeter i see? :)
no those are vifa/scanspeak R7000
http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=916
Shit, I bet one could go to a local glass blower and have this set up made for less than $1000.
I thought it said Heroin because the photo looks like a bunch of pieces used to make a hypodermic.