I truly love the way industrial designers think, its great that the longer a speaker is used by the customer, the lower its CO² footprint. Also really appreciate that the creators put an emphasis on its easiness of repair, especially the battery component as its usually the first one to give up in speakers. They published a tutorial on how to repair it, really appreciate them going this far for consumers
>the longer a speaker is used by the customer, the lower its CO₂ footprint
if a rich audiophile replaces his speakers every year with the latest and greatest, and his old speakers get passed down the food chain to other audiophiles with lower budgets, what falls off the other end of the chain is a very old speaker which whose carbon foot print has been amortized over 10 years or more, and a better listening experience for everybody in between, and perhaps even speakers for people who would not otherwise even have them who picked them up at Goodwill.
also, a healthier industry with more employment for folks who won't have much employment if they only sell a pair of speakers every 10 years.
This is Reaganomics [1], but for speakers. There's just a handful of audiophiles that would be replacing their speakers every year, so there would be hardly any "downflow" of quality second-hand speakers.
And repairability just means that the industry can move people from manufacturing to service and support.
>There's just a handful of audiophiles that would be replacing their speakers every year
then the carbon footprint is negligible also, which is what this discussion is about, not total sales of high end speakers
but if you were a more flexible thinker, you would have noted that the explanation I gave works at any level of the product stream and it illustrates how economic activity works "at the margin" all the time; the carbon footprint argument I'm explaining against did not take this into account and gave an incorrect picture of the carbon situation.
"at the margin" is a related idea to differentials/derivatives in calculus, with a mix of brownian motion or statistical mechanics. Consider the idea that "the economy is so bad, PhD's are driving taxis". If a university opens up in that town and hires a bunch of PhDs, they wouldn't be driving taxis any more. those jobs would be filled by other people who used to be doing other things, and those jobs would in turn be filled. This is not Reagonomics, it's economics.
The key factor in deciding if it’s reaganomics or economics is: do people actually pass it on.
Reagonomics doesn’t work because the rich hoard wealth, use leveraged money to keep their hoard rather than it trickling down, and use their hoard to influence policy and the social environment against the working class.
Electronics also don’t trickle down when you toss your old phone in a drawer rather than passing it on. Or when software updates make it unusable after 3 years. Or when parts (battery, screen glass) aren’t replaceable. Or when social cache is attached to new electronics but not older ones.
So the existence of high end audio products that CAN trickle down doesn’t mean they ARE trickling down.
if I don't have to replace basic electronic every year, then I have that budget to 'enlarge' my interest. I might get into audiophile, or mechanical keyboard.
that's another way to sell more than one speaker every 10 years.
Tangential question: are there any good quality Bluetooth speakers that feature some speech recognition and an interface with YouTube Music/Amazon Music so I can just say: "hey speaker, play Coldplay".
My Google Home speaker (early version) is getting long in the tooth and has become flaky.
Teufel is a super cool company and they deservedly have won numerous awards not only for their audio quality but also their design.
As much as I applaud the idea behind the MYND and going only by the pictures from the article: It’s not a beauty.
The partially filled holes on the front make it look as if it has already accumulated some patina. The armchair designer in me can’t help thinking: If you want to go for the gritty look, do it all the way, otherwise keep it clean.
I have some experience manufacturing things with sustainability as a goal.
One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that the “clean” and “minimal” look that we associate with high end “well designed” products (think apple, teenage engineering) is almost completely opposed to sustainable materials and design.
The more minimal your design the more it shows blemishes. The more you see blemishes the more parts will be rejected and scrapped during manufacturing.
Similarly, the most sustainable materials to use are waste products of existing manufacturing - offcuts or upcycled/recycled scrap. But those will have inconsistent finishes that will show on minimalist designs.
I think an important step in actually moving towards ethical manufacturing is a change in aesthetics - so markers of sustainability are markers of cool / “good design”
I’m not sure that is why the panels have partial holes - but it might be a factor.
Here's a link to the firmware: https://github.com/teufelaudio/mynd-firmware
I haven't been able to find PCB schematics; there's stuff here but I don't think that's it? https://support.teufel.de/hc/de/articles/26524120330258-MYND...
>there's stuff here but I don't think that's it?
Why not? The download definitely contains files for defining PCBs? Although it is a bit misleading to only call it CAD.
"[..] misleading to only call it CAD."
Not unusual from my experience either and it also makes sense: PCB design is a form of Computer Aided Design after all.
You usually call it EDA, though.
Sure, but the text suggested that it was about the files for mechanical design.
Yep, I figured it was just the files required to print the case. That's good then!
I truly love the way industrial designers think, its great that the longer a speaker is used by the customer, the lower its CO² footprint. Also really appreciate that the creators put an emphasis on its easiness of repair, especially the battery component as its usually the first one to give up in speakers. They published a tutorial on how to repair it, really appreciate them going this far for consumers
>the longer a speaker is used by the customer, the lower its CO₂ footprint
if a rich audiophile replaces his speakers every year with the latest and greatest, and his old speakers get passed down the food chain to other audiophiles with lower budgets, what falls off the other end of the chain is a very old speaker which whose carbon foot print has been amortized over 10 years or more, and a better listening experience for everybody in between, and perhaps even speakers for people who would not otherwise even have them who picked them up at Goodwill.
also, a healthier industry with more employment for folks who won't have much employment if they only sell a pair of speakers every 10 years.
This is Reaganomics [1], but for speakers. There's just a handful of audiophiles that would be replacing their speakers every year, so there would be hardly any "downflow" of quality second-hand speakers.
And repairability just means that the industry can move people from manufacturing to service and support.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics
you've lost the plot
>There's just a handful of audiophiles that would be replacing their speakers every year
then the carbon footprint is negligible also, which is what this discussion is about, not total sales of high end speakers
but if you were a more flexible thinker, you would have noted that the explanation I gave works at any level of the product stream and it illustrates how economic activity works "at the margin" all the time; the carbon footprint argument I'm explaining against did not take this into account and gave an incorrect picture of the carbon situation.
"at the margin" is a related idea to differentials/derivatives in calculus, with a mix of brownian motion or statistical mechanics. Consider the idea that "the economy is so bad, PhD's are driving taxis". If a university opens up in that town and hires a bunch of PhDs, they wouldn't be driving taxis any more. those jobs would be filled by other people who used to be doing other things, and those jobs would in turn be filled. This is not Reagonomics, it's economics.
The key factor in deciding if it’s reaganomics or economics is: do people actually pass it on.
Reagonomics doesn’t work because the rich hoard wealth, use leveraged money to keep their hoard rather than it trickling down, and use their hoard to influence policy and the social environment against the working class.
Electronics also don’t trickle down when you toss your old phone in a drawer rather than passing it on. Or when software updates make it unusable after 3 years. Or when parts (battery, screen glass) aren’t replaceable. Or when social cache is attached to new electronics but not older ones.
So the existence of high end audio products that CAN trickle down doesn’t mean they ARE trickling down.
if I don't have to replace basic electronic every year, then I have that budget to 'enlarge' my interest. I might get into audiophile, or mechanical keyboard.
that's another way to sell more than one speaker every 10 years.
My 45 yo Technics speakers appreciate this comment…
Tangential question: are there any good quality Bluetooth speakers that feature some speech recognition and an interface with YouTube Music/Amazon Music so I can just say: "hey speaker, play Coldplay".
My Google Home speaker (early version) is getting long in the tooth and has become flaky.
Home Assistant has an open source smart speaker: https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/
It's still in preview.
Teufel is a super cool company and they deservedly have won numerous awards not only for their audio quality but also their design.
As much as I applaud the idea behind the MYND and going only by the pictures from the article: It’s not a beauty.
The partially filled holes on the front make it look as if it has already accumulated some patina. The armchair designer in me can’t help thinking: If you want to go for the gritty look, do it all the way, otherwise keep it clean.
I have some experience manufacturing things with sustainability as a goal.
One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that the “clean” and “minimal” look that we associate with high end “well designed” products (think apple, teenage engineering) is almost completely opposed to sustainable materials and design.
The more minimal your design the more it shows blemishes. The more you see blemishes the more parts will be rejected and scrapped during manufacturing.
Similarly, the most sustainable materials to use are waste products of existing manufacturing - offcuts or upcycled/recycled scrap. But those will have inconsistent finishes that will show on minimalist designs.
I think an important step in actually moving towards ethical manufacturing is a change in aesthetics - so markers of sustainability are markers of cool / “good design”
I’m not sure that is why the panels have partial holes - but it might be a factor.
Any idea how I could get this in the US? They only want to ship to Luxembourg.
Unfortunately no. Here is a full list of countries: https://support.teufel.de/hc/en-us/articles/22903502875282-W...
What happened to the foam panel speakers, were they not good?