At 2022 Milan Design Week, assemble-it-yourself furniture giant Ikea has announced the results of a partnership with supergroup Swedish House Mafia to create a new product line for music production in the home, including a boxy record player.
Electronic music phenom Swedish House Mafia was officially formed in the latter part of 2008 by DJs Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso, subsequently clocking up global chart success with singles like Antidote, Don't You Worry Child and Moth to a Flame. Last year Ikea announced a collaboration with the supergroup to create a range of products aimed at budding home music producers.
"We both wanted to reach out of our comfort zones and create something new and fresh together: a pure collaboration between music creators and a home expert," said Swedish House Mafia. "We strongly felt a need to collaborate with someone who shared our vision of making it possible for everyone to create music at home. As artists and producers, we also understand the importance of a home studio set-up and the needs and challenges many up-and-coming artists and creatives have at home."
Due to hit Ikea shelves in the Northern Hemisphere fall, the Obegränsad collection is the result of that partnership and debuts with three new products: a desk for music creators, an armchair and a record player – all aimed at "those with a limited budget but unlimited creativity."
The desk includes integrated stands to raise monitor speakers to ear level and a pull-out shelf for sliding out a MIDI keyboard when needed. And the minimalist armchair sports adjustable straps for comfort finetuning. But it's the turntable that's arguably of greatest interest to us.
As is common with Ikea product announcements, details are pretty thin but the first turntable from the company since 1973 – not including an abandoned effort for the Frekvens collection – features chunky textured switches out front of the boxy vibration-damping matte-black body for powering the turntable on and off and selecting either 45 or 33 rpm speeds.
The j-shaped tonearm up top ends in an unspecified Audio Technica cartridge, which can be swapped out by the customer if desired, and it looks like placement of the stylus on the vinyl record is manual rather than automatic.
There's a built-in pre-amp along with RCA ports to the left for cabling up to standard speakers or to a more capable hi-fi amplifier, and the system will also stream wirelessly to Bluetooth speakers like Ikea's own Eneby model. And interestingly, the designers appear to have somehow powered the Obegränsad turntable via USB cable.
No further information is available at this time, and Ikea has not revealed expected pricing either but the Obegränsad collection is due to launch this fall, so we won't have too long to wait.
Source: Ikea
