Even though I was sick as a dog and filled with green boogers from the shoulders up, I ran-skipped all the way to the BUST office when I got word that my Joey Roth Ceramic Speakers had arrived. “I hope you don’t have to send these back; the box is huge,” my editor informed me. And I’m glad that I don’t have to send them back too because at this point, I would put on a onesie and wrestle someone to the ground to be able to keep these things.
Joey Roth lives in San Francisco and received his degree in Industrial Design Theory from Swarthmore in 2006. Since that time he has obsessed over how to beautify products that help us go about our daily rituals, like drinking tea and listening to music. Roth’s other product listed for sale on his website is the Sorapot, and you guessed it, I totally want that too. Roth’s second invention, his ceramic speaker set, hit the market in late November and has been the buzz of the audiophile scene since.
The ceramic speaker set is Roth’s way of combating typical computer speakers, which are designed to toot out even the shittiest sounding compressed tracks. These speakers really dive into the cracks and pull up all those lost sounds. The set itself is made of simple materials such as porcelain, cork, and Baltic birch – backed by a Tripath amplifier, which is nerd speak for: it lays out even the most nuanced parts of your favorite song like a piece of rice candy melting on your tongue.
It has been awhile now since the process of music listening became a solitary act. There was once a time when we all compared notes on what sort of stereos we had or wanted, and where to go to buy hard to find CDs and albums. Now we are somehow content in smooshing as many MP3s into our ipods as we can, isolated between two dangling, white headphone cords. After hooking up my ceramic speakers (which took about 10 minutes tops) I feel like my house, and not just my ear holes, is filled with music once again. I have found myself re-listening to things that I haven’t listened to in years – because these speakers bring out parts of the songs that I had never even noticed before. If you are someone who spends a good portion of their day listening to music, I would save up the money to buy these, or maybe ask Santa for them. You’d be surprised what you’ve been missing.
