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Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player – In cooperation with Swedish House Mafia

Ikea announced some time ago that it was working with the EDM supergroup Swedish House Mafia. Part of this cooperation is also a record player, which will now be found on the pallets of Ikea stores in the fall of 2022, the Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player.

It seems a bit bizarre that Ikea is now planning to launch the Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player in cooperation with Swedish House Mafia. This is by no means the first project of this kind that the Swedish company has pursued; back in 2018, they planned to launch their own record player on the market, in collaboration with Teenage Engineering. However, this project was not successful.

A few years earlier, however, Ikea actually already had a record player in its assortment, namely at the beginning of the 1970s, whereby in those years amplifiers and speaker systems, even pianos, could also be found in the catalog of the Swedes.

To this history one ties now somehow, so the enterprise, whereby the Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player is to be found now already in October 2022 on the pallets in the market halls Ikea furniture stores.

Foto © Inter IKEA Systems B.V. | Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player
Foto © Inter IKEA Systems B.V. | Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player

Far-reaching cooperation with Swedish House Mafia

As early as September 2021, Ikea announced its cooperation with Swedish House Mafia, a project by Swedish DJs Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso, which was founded in 2008.

From Ikea’s point of view, the intention of this collaboration is clearly to address a new target group, although this is of course marketed in a particularly hip way and is more about encouraging people’s creativity and giving them the right solutions to discover music for themselves at home. The fact is, the result of this collaboration is to be a special collection, which is now available with September 2022 as Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Collection.

Part of this collection, which includes a desk, lamps, stands for notebooks, tablets and smartphones, is also a record player, namely the Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player.

Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player – Timeless Charm of Vinyl?

If Ikea has its way, the new Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player is supposed to bring the timeless charm of vinyl into people’s homes. The company talks about how this drive follows an elegant, minimalist style and shines with simplicity of use.

In fact, the drive presents itself as a downright bulky, hulking box, where you can see at first glance that corners have been cut.

“The solid, chunky design gives the player a presence in the room. It transmits the physicality of the music in the collection, so it really occupies the space that the attitude of the music is woven into – rather than blending into.”

Friso Wiersma, designer responsible for the Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player at Ikea

The thin turntable with felt mat, probably made of MDF, protrudes a little beyond the cuboid, very tall chassis, is thus decentralized, so that the tonearm finds its place to the right of it.

The drive is supposed to be via USB, whereby it is a drive by means of a belt, which, however, remains hidden. The speed can be selected here by means of a switch between 33 and 45 revolutions per minute.

The tonearm doesn’t really leave a high-quality impression either, although an Audio Technica AT3600L MM cartridge is pre-mounted here ex works.

The Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player is said to feature an integrated phono preamp that outputs audio signals via a pair of RCA jacks found on the side. In addition, this drive is supposed to have Bluetooth, which means that it can also directly control Bluetooth speakers, first and foremost those from Ikea itself, of course, such as the Ikea ENEBY Bluetooth Speaker.

Prices and availability

According to current information, the Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player will be offered at a price of about US$ 160,- in matte black.

Getting to the point

Yes, it is to be welcomed that vinyl is again so popular that in nearly each current film, each TV series, a record player is to be seen that it belongs to the modern Lifestyle again to call a record player its own, the offer at records grows and grows, and these reached again a relevant order of magnitude around a genuine counterweight to pure Streaming to represent.

All this ensures that the record is no longer considered obsolete, but stylish, hip and modern. This also includes the fact that for years now, almost every company that has anything to do with consumer electronics has been launching its “own” record player on the market, even if these are ultimately only produced by a handful of companies in the lowest price segment, mostly in the Far East.

It was foreseeable that companies like Ikea would also want to profit from this hype, and it was also foreseeable that the Ikea OBEGRÄNSAD Record Player solution presented here is a drive that is better left alone.

This drive can’t convey anything of what makes the magic of vinyl, it’s – if you’ll pardon the pun – nothing more than an ugly box that isn’t even really cheap. If you take a look around at what real specialists have to offer, you usually only have to invest “a few euros” more to buy a turntable from these experts that actually delivers what record playback promises.

According to Ikea, OBEGRÄNSAD stands for infinite, and the only thing we can think of is that it would be an infinite pity to waste your money on this drive.

PRODUCTIKEA OBEGRÄNSAD RECORD PLAYER
PriceUS$ 160,-
BrandIKEA
ManufacturerInter IKEA Systems B.V.
DistributionInter IKEA Systems B.V.
More about this manufacturer at HIFI BLOG
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Michael Holzinger

Michael Holzinger, founder and editor-in-chief of HiFi BLOG and sempre-audio.at, has been working for years as a journalist in the fields of IT, photography, telecommunications and consumer electronics.

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