A successful Kickstarter combines beauty with performance ? for a price
The Feniks Essence speakers that have been gracing my desk for the past two months are expensive. They cost more than $1,200 to their earliest Kickstarter backers and have been crafted for the quite narrow purpose of sitting on your desktop and pumping sound out of your computer. But they are also designed thoughtfully and built exquisitely, combining great aesthetics and construction with brilliant performance.
Probably the chief reason to consider the Essence is luxury. Yes, luxury is defined by its unnecessariness, but if you want to make a long-lasting tech gift to yourself or to a loved one, the choices are actually quite narrow. Gold Apple Watches and diamond-encrusted Vertus will age as disgracefully as VHS and DVD players, and even the most useful gadgets today are saddled with a shorter lifespan than a Nexus 6 replicant. This is where speakers and headphones are special: you can buy a good set today and enjoy it for decades with proper care. But true luxury also requires something more than a pretty patina or gold casing, and that’s where the Feniks Essence asserts itself very well, offering sound quality to match its pretty looks and impeccable build.
The world of computer speakers isn’t exactly lacking in options, and most of them cost a fraction of the Essence’s asking price. So what goes into a $1,000+ audio product" The first thing is plenty of history and develop...