The most sustainable way to listen

The slow-food of music systems.

With the products we've selected, materials are important. Wood and metal are prioritised over plastics. 

While wood and metal chassis construction is inherently more environmentally friendly, these materials also better neutralise acoustic and electrical interference, helping to improve the clarity of your sound.

The manufacture of our products involves ethically-employed and skilled workers, with much of the process prioritising hand assembly over robotics.

Your companion for years and years to come.

Bluetooth speakers and mini-systems often get junked at the end of their lives. All-in-one designs become obsolete once a new technology comes out, making the lifespans of these products a shorter one. Cheaper construction compounds the risk.

Quality products of the type we sell, with love and care, are designed to last decades.

Our music systems are what's known as 'component audio'. Each element is separated by the job it performs. Meaning that if you decide you want to upgrade one part (say, the speakers when you move into a bigger place), you don't have to throw away the whole system. Just swap that part out.

It works for adding elements too. If you start with just a turntable as a music source, you can later add a CD player or a hi-res music streamer if you get more serious. These items will plug into your original amplifier, which has universal inputs designed for different brands and different technologies. The future is covered.

Any piece you do part ways with can be re-sold or given to someone else to enjoy. No built-in obsolescence, no adding to landfill.

It's a philosophy that's been around for decades, since the dawn of hifi. That's why when you walk into a vintage store today, you'll still see second hand component audio systems kicking about from the 70s. It is, by its nature, modular.

Towards plastic neutrality.

This started with an email from one of our customers.

"So, my partner and I are trying to do plastic free July and if it's at all possible would request that packaging doesn't have any extra plastic or if you want to keep whatever plastic it comes in for something else?"

Honestly, we didn't have a good answer. While our products use a small amount of plastic compared to some of the more crude and disposable audio products out there, the packaging still contains plastics and foams, and these are necessary for protection during freight. We recommend our customers keep them in case they ever move house or sell one of their products.

We're always bugging our suppliers about transitioning to more environmentally-friendly materials, but we aren't in control there. So we looked into it, and found that what we can do is buy plastic offsets for every product we sell. 

We're partnering with the leader in this field, rePurpose. We'll soon be buying offsets from them for every kilo of plastic in the products and packaging we sell (on a quarterly basis). They in turn use this revenue to fund plastic removal from the local environment in developing nations.

How about carbon offsets?

We'll also soon be neutralising the carbon offsets from our delivery operations.

And the impact of vinyl?

It's a good question. Vinyl gets its name from its main ingredient, polyvinyl chloride - a type of plastic. Instinctively, this would seem like a less environmentally friendly option than streaming. There are, of course, no perfect solutions - the lifecycle cost of both music playback options creates carbon emissions and waste.

For vinyl, it's the process of creating the plastic and manufacturing and distributing the vinyl record. But once it's created, and provided it gets kept and re-used (as they most often are, with a thriving vinyl second hand market), there is a very small impact after the point at which it gets into someone's collection. Streaming, on the other hand, involves the elevated ongoing use of electricity in servers, internet connections and playback devices.

Our read on things is that no one form of playback is significantly different in its environmental effects to the other. Here's a good analysis of the issue, and here's another.

Are we perfect?

No, certainly not yet. But we are aiming to be conscientious about the footprint we and our customers leave on the environment when it comes to our products. It's an ongoing challenge, and we'll always be seeking to improve. If you can think of anything else we can be doing, you're most welcome to get in touch and we'll take your ideas on board!