In a world where miniaturization rules the roost, it's refreshing to see some things getting bigger and bigger. Just last week we featured Regen's enormous ReVerb iPod dock which stands tall and slim at 35 inches (90cm). Now from Sweden comes the colossal 37.5 x 49 x 12 inch (95cm x 125cm x 30cm) "Wall of Sound", which can boom out 125 Watts of ground-shaking, tube-driven audio from its 28 speakers.
The 16 subwoofers, eight mids and four tweeters each sit in their own individual handcrafted compartment within the immense MDF frame. The heart of the beast is a Dynavox Hybrid amplifier with ECC 83 vacuum tubes which is capable of thumping out 125 Watts of audio at a frequency range of 40Hz to 20kHz and should offer the listener "graceful mids and crystal clear highs" as well as booming bass.
The included iPod dock is connected to the amplifier at the rear of the unit via USB where RCA CD and Aux inputs can also be found along with high level stereo speaker outputs. Each Wall of Sound is built by hand in Malmö, southern Sweden by Studio Total at a rate of about four per month.
The first generation Wall of Sound has been on display at the Brothers store in Stockholm and all models in this limited first run have now been sold. Studio Total is now working on the second generation where some changes are set to take place.
The Wall of Sound is all about power, you won't find any of those little comforts we've all become accustomed to like WiFi or Bluetooth wireless streaming capabilities or a remote control but version two will sport an improved user interface with volume and EQ control on the unit itself and bigger subwoofers as well as some frequency adjustments.
More information on the Wall of Sound can be found on the product website, including how to pre-order a generation two model (prices start at US$4,495). Just make sure your audio files are of sufficiently high bit rate to get the most from this monster.
For $4500, I can give you some REAL power and boom, and be a little less apparent.
I wonder if the analog tube amps smooth out any of the harshness in some MP3 encoded with too low a bit-rate? I guess it would not matter much if it was cranked to "11".
iPods actually suck.. so if you want GOOD quality sound you want something that can play .WAV,.OGG or .FLAC as important as speakers are for sound so is the format your playing it in...
and sorry... 4,500.00 for a player that costs less than 200.00 ???