The Hickensian

2.10.09 Neil Poulton Speakers

10 comments
Tagged with: design, speakers

Lacie Speakers

I don’t want this to turn into one of those ‘product blogs’ (you know “check out this cutter for making Helvetica letters out of potatoes”) but I wanted to share these mighty fine Lacie USB Speakers. There’s something very pleasing about their boldness and stark simplicity.

These aren’t the first speakers Neil Poulton has designed for Lacie though, they’re very much the lovechild of his previous firewire speakers, shaped like an ocean liner funnel:

old lacie speakers

What was special about these was that they didn’t need a power supply, unlike the new USB ones – they took all the power they needed from the firewire connection.

Update – now that proper details have emerged these do indeed run from USB or mains power, so yay! Thanks commenters!

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No.1

∞ Bryan Schuetz said 160 days ago:

What is the EQ app on the screen there? Or is that just some sort of marketing gimmickry?

No.2

∞ Gary McCafferty said 160 days ago:

@bryan I’d hazard a guess that it’s just marketing gimmickry.

They do look lovely, but I guess the key question is do they sound any good?

No.3

∞ Jon Hicks said 160 days ago:

Until the iLounge review happens, we won’t know!

No.4

∞ Oliver Lorton said 160 days ago:

More to the point where can i get the Helvetica Potato Cutters

No.5

∞ Malarkey said 160 days ago:

Sorry Jon but the photo of these speakers that you chose is not as good as some of the others you might have used. (The 3/4 shot in particular is far better.)

I used to be a regular reader of this blog (I heard of you because of your podcast) but I won’t be coming back again.

No.6

∞ Shaun Bohannon said 159 days ago:

LOL @ Malarkey, I actually prefer the profile view.

I do wonder why these speakers are USB though. Obviously it made sense to use firewire previously to draw power and audio at the same time.

Now with the new version requiring an AC input anyway. Is there any benefit in being USB connected opposed to through the traditional Audio out?

No.7

∞ Matthew Newman said 159 days ago:

I had a set of Neil Poulton “funnel” firewire speakers. They looked fantastic in the promo shots but weren’t anywhere near as pretty in real life. I was surprised to find the actual speaker was very small; not the entire black area as I’d assumed and I wasn’t too happy with the quality of the plastics either.

After considering a set of Micropods (as previously reviewed by Jon) I ended up returning my “funnels” and buying a set of Audica MPS-1’s which whilst admittedly more expensive than the funnels sound fantastic and IMHO look great too.

I sincerely hope Lacie’s latest efforts live up to their (gorgeous) appearance.

No.8

∞ Andreas said 159 days ago:

These looks delicious! and even better, according to the official website they run either on USB power OR ac power, yay no ugly power bricks!

(In addition, the dual power mode allows you to use the speakers with a USB cable or with the included power supply for optimal quality. )

Totally on my christmas list of want!

No.9

∞ Ross Chapman said 156 days ago:

I can confirm Andreas’ find! http://moourl.com/s22oa

No.10

∞ Mars said 154 days ago:

The 500 mA limited current of USB is not sufficient for high fidelity audio amplification. AC power should be considered a good thing for external speakers.