Ikea, which has by no means been scared to dive into new product classes, has introduced plans to release a record player as a part of its new Obegränsad assortment this fall. The record player was designed in collaboration with home music supergroup Swedish House Mafia, and has a chunky design in step with quite a lot of the opposite shopper electronics Ikea has produced. Alongside it, the Swedish retailer has additionally introduced an armchair and desk as a part of the gathering.
This technically isn’t the primary record enjoying system that Ikea has introduced. Way again in 2018 it introduced a turntable made in collaboration with Teenage Engineering that it hoped to launch the next yr. But in accordance to a Teenage Engineering support page, the player by no means made it into the ultimate assortment.
Image: Ikea
Ikea engineer Carmen Stoicescu alludes to this earlier try in an interview about the brand new record player on Ikea’s site. “When the query got here to me, I simply stated, ‘We actually tried to do a record player earlier than, so we might use the identical provider possibly?’” she says. The writeup accommodates a few hints about the player’s performance, like the actual fact that it has a built-in preamp, is powered over USB and includes a replaceable cartridge and needle. In a press launch Ikea additionally notes that the player will work with its Eneby Bluetooth speaker, however as a result of it doesn’t actually help Bluetooth it’ll solely work over a wired connection. Otherwise, technical particulars are slim. It’s not clear whether or not the record player has built-in audio system or whether or not it’s restricted to wired output.
We’ve put these questions to Ikea together with questions about how a lot the system is predicted to value. It’ll be accessible this fall together with over 20 different merchandise that make up the Obegränsad assortment.