Speaker cabinets are usually made from wood or, for penny pinching, plastic – though we have seen speakers made using other materials like glass and concrete. Michele Gastaldello and Giacomo Munari have mixed Italian design with good old-fashioned stone masonry for their Stones Speakers line now raising funds on Kickstarter.
The cabinets for all of the Stones Speakers range are carved out of Trachyte from the Euganean hills near where the makers live. This volcanic stone, that's sometimes used in architecture, is claimed to possess "unique mechanical characteristics and sought after features suitable for sound." And each member of the line has been named after an asteroid, to complete the rocky theme.
The baby of the bunch weighs in at a healthy 6.2 kg (13.7 lb) and is called the 482 Petrina. It's a 6.3 inch (160 cm) stone cube with a single 4-inch full-range passive driver (which means that users will need to connect it to a hi-fi amplifier). This model is being offered in single or two unit options.
Next up is a bookshelf speaker set of sorts, though at 55 kg (121 lb) each, you will need quite a sturdy bookshelf to plonk them on. The 487 Venetia has a vented cabinet design with separate chambers for each driver, represented by a 6-inch (160 mm) carbon fiber midwoofer with a 4-inch (110 mm) tweeter sat above. The 487 comes as a pair and, again these are passive speakers.
The 593 Titania speakers are not part of the startup's Kickstarter, but are still worth a mention. The four way floor-standers weigh in at 250 kg (550 lb) and the huge blocks of stone are home to a 12-inch subwoofer, 4-inch woofer, 3-inch midrange dome and 2-inch dome tweeter – each in its own chamber.
And one more worthy mention, again not part of the crowdfunding effort, shapes up at a center channel module called the 884 Priamus. This is a 3-way system with a 6-inch woofer, a 3-inch midrange dome and a 1-inch tweeter.
The Stones Speakers project has launched on Kickstarter, where pledge start at €199 (US$235) for a single 482 speaker and rise to €5,990 for the 487 pair. If all goes to plan, shipping is expected to start in August 2018. The pitch video below has more on the project.
Sources: Stones Speakers, Kickstarter