Super high-end Swiss audio brand Goldmund has teamed up with French luxury trunk maker Pinel et Pinel for an update of its iconic Apologue speakers, producing a limited run of 20 unique pairs costing $1.77M USD each.
The pair have also enlisted the help of Cyril Kongo, the French street artist sometimes known simply as Kongo, as a third creative collaborator. Kongo's artwork adorns each of the speaker's five separate individual units, with the artist – who has previously collaborated with the likes of Hermès and Richard Mille – referring to the partnership "a multi-sensory work that bridges the world of ultimate hi-fi, luxury leather goods, and contemporary art."
The Apologue speaker is one of Goldmund's most iconic products and, in 1987, it was recognized by the MoMA for its design and put on public display. Unlike the 1980s version, which was a three-way passive speaker, the new "Apologue Ultimate Pinel et Pinel & Cyril Kongo" edition is an active speaker constructed with six separate drivers. It features one tweeter dome and one super tweeter dome, as well as dual seven-inch midrange drivers and dual 12-inch woofers.
As an active speaker, the new Apologue features six corresponding amplifiers that power its drivers, consisting of a single 300 watt amp for each of the tweeters, two 300 watt amps for for the midrange driver, and two 700 watt amps, all of which are built into the five units that make up the speaker.
"We designed these speakers as sculptures," explains Pinel et Pinel founder Fred Pinel. Each of these "sculptures" has been wrapped in a 52.5 feet (16 meters) of premium, smooth calfskin leather from Pinel et Pinel's Parisian atelier, separated into around 15 pieces per speaker. These were then individually hand-painted by Kongo who, according to the brands, had complete artistic freedom in how he interpreted the brief. And, like most of Goldmund's speakers, each one was fully assembled in Switzerland.
As well as posing a new challenge for the artist – who needed to paint in reverse, owing to how the speaker was to be later constructed – the partnership allowed Kongo to tap into another of his interests: music. "When I was younger, I experimented a lot with sound systems," he says, "I have a passion for music and musicians, but also for artisans like Fred Pinel." He adds that the collaboration was an opportunity to "incorporate the elements that define my pictorial style, my artistic vocabulary, my personality.”
The highly limited speakers are available to purchase now via special order through Goldmund. They weigh 794lbs (360kg) each and cost €1.5M EUR / $1.77M USD per pair.
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