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Ceramic Towers by Joey Roth Elevate Sight and Sound

12.16.16 | By
Ceramic Towers by Joey Roth Elevate Sight and Sound

Back in 2009 industrial designer Joey Roth attained a fair bit of recognition as an outlier in the realm of audio componentry for his idiosyncratic creativity envisioning technology as objet d’art. Roth’s original Ceramic Speakers combined pristine white porcelain cones with cork and maple wood, aesthetically minimal tabletop speakers that towed the line between sculpture and speakers. The bellweather design was appreciated for its artful presence as much as its acoustic acumen.

That same organic and understated commitment to edited materiality is again on display, this time in a significantly more towering form capable of a deeper, richer sound than the original.

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Roth’s new Ceramic Towers are floor-standing speakers sheathed in extruded and billet 6061 aluminum, engineered to work in harmony with those original Ceramic Speakers as both stand and as an aural performance boost – a serious upgrade and conversion kit that turns the small speakers into a full-room floor-standing system. The tower design seems to be a natural evolution of Roth’s previous designs, including his similarly rectilinear, but smaller Steel Speaker.

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Maple rods and a CNC’d pocket securely hold each Ceramic Speaker in place and at a slight upward angle 26″ off the floor for optimal performance, with a crossover consisting of a single copper inductor designed to result in a “gentle first-order transition” to each of the Ceramic Speakers at 125 hz. An optional Bluetooth component permits using a wireless source for listening pleasure.

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Roth has literally placed his original design up onto a pedestal, magnifying the porcelain cone even further into the territory of sculpture freed from the constraints of its Baltic birch stands.

Made to order in Oregon “one at a time”, a pair of $2350 Ceramic Towers requires four to six weeks for fabrication, and are available with a $50 discount when purchased in combination with a pair of original Ceramic Speakers. Available today with additional information at joeyroth.com.

Gregory Han is a Senior Editor at Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.