In the 70 years since Dr Sidney Harman and Bernard Kardon established their hi-fi company in Westbury, New York, the company has established an enviable reputation in the hi-fi world. So as part of its birthday celebrations at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the company has announced three new products designed to bolster that reputation yet further.
As is fashionable lately, Harman/Kardon is revisiting one of its most iconic designs to deliver a brand new product – the Aura Studio 4 Bluetooth speaker is, visually at least, a direct descendant of the company’s Jonny Ive-designed SoundSticks. It uses the same strikingly transparent design and the same attention to detail where specification is concerned, but adds a little 21st-century modernity too.
Like all three of these new products, Aura Studio 4 uses as many recycled materials as possible in its construction. Six speaker drivers augment a 132mm down-firing bass drivers in order to create as open and accurate a sound as possible, while 324 individual crystals at the bottom of the see-through cabinet offer a visual counterpoint to the sound the speaker delivers.
The Go + Play 3 Bluetooth speaker, meanwhile, is just as obviously a development of some established Harman/Kardon design language – that semi-circular silhouette has been a successful look for the company for a while.
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With a three-way speaker driver arrangement including an exposed, down-facing bass driver, automatic room calibration, eight hours of battery life and the ability to use two to create a stereo pair, Go + Play 3 has it where it counts – and thanks to a combination of tempered glass, aluminium and fabric, it really ought to feel as good as it looks.
The baby of the trio is the Luna portable Bluetooth speaker. It’s a hand-sized, fabric-and-aluminium speaker with a go-anywhere IP67 rating, 12 hours of battery life and a two-way driver set-up doing the audio business. It too can form a stereo pair, should you feel the need to purchase a couple.
All three of new products are on sale from September 15th. Aura Studio 4 will be priced at €329, while Go + Play 3 is yours for €349 and Luna costs €179. More details are available at Harman Kardon website.
