PACO CONCRETE BLUETOOTH SPEAKER

Italian firm Digital Habit(s) has created the amazing PACO Concrete Bluetooth Speaker that is something truly different in the speakers market. Most of the products that stand out in this niche do so due to their design, but the appearance is just a part of PACO’s uniqueness.

PACO speaker is made of concrete. This is enough to make it special, since most speaker cabinets are made of MDF, plastic or wood – materials that have been known to oscillate when encountering the sound waves the speakers produce. Concrete shell is highly unlikely to be influenced by such waves.

The cabinet has the dimensions of 26 x 19 x 14 cm (10.2 x 7.5 x 5.5 in) and it weighs 5 kg (about 11 lbs). The construction houses two 6 W amps, a front-firing 3.5-inch low/mid range speaker, and a 2-inch transducer that makes the highs warmer and works great with the enhancing qualities of the bass that the concrete housing provides. The frequency response is 85 Hz to 20 kHz.

Talking about its design, we must emphasize PACO’s minimalistic look. Apart from the already mentioned concrete shell, the only discernable feature is the wooden top that accommodates a dash housing a pair of IR sensors. These sensors detect movement and help control the speaker. For example, holding a hand over both sensors starts or pauses playback, sliding from one side to another skips tracks and various other moves, taps and swipes control other features such as volume.

It is fairly intuitive and easy to use. However remarkable, this is not the first time we have seen such technology since we have already presented the RAFL Wireless Speaker that works the similar way.

Very noticeable is the lack of audio input jack that has become obsolete since the music is streamed to the speaker via Bluetooth. However, there is a line out that can be used to connect the PACO to active speakers. [via] watch video below