Sustainability

As product designers, one of our main struggles will always be the fact that creating anything at all is inherently unsustainable – would it not be better to spare the world another new thing? Our endeavor is an ongoing debate with this issue, and we are constantly reviewing our privilege to design products. What follows is a summary of our measures to offer an ecological advantage over other manufacturers, who are often either too ignorant or too preoccupied to care.

Design Philosophy

At the core of our mission is to offer timeless audio pieces with long ownership cycles through thoughtful design and durable, honest materials. When designing speakers, many of our choices are driven by structural optimizations, leading to their signature functional appearance. Those choices go hand in hand with acoustic perfectionism, and only then are purely aesthetic things concerned.

Part of our plan for a long product lifespan is repairability and education about care, both of which have sadly taken a step back in modern consumer and manufacturer priorities. Yes, things are just supposed to work, but what if they stop? In long-lasting designs especially, not all parts have equal lifespans. Speaker drivers, for example, are as robust as they have ever been, but they are still prone to things like dust cap pinching by curious children. We are taking a page from sound system culture's book and keeping everything accessible for repair, replacement, or future upgrades. Care and repair guides will follow.

Company Operation

We plan our operation in small batches, which keeps logistics compact and warehousing efficient. We typically only source as much material as we need for a batch, meaning that needless shipping and waste are kept at a minimum. Local procurement is a key factor for us: Not only is it more sustainable, it also benefits everyone involved with a more personal and reliable partnership. This leads us to source as many speaker parts as we can from Germany or European neighbors like Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland instead of overseas. The same goes for materials, where possible – more on that below.

Our studio and workshop are located in an old industrial facility in southwest Berlin. We are part of a larger project that intermediately uses these grounds as atelier and exhibition spaces, allowing artists and designers to operate in what would otherwise become an abandoned ruin. As a community-driven endeavor, resources and tools are often shared, making everything more sustainable both environmentally and socially when compared to traditional setups.

We make a point of never using AI for creative processes like writing or content creation. This has multiple reasons – among which is sustainability – but above all, it would just feel wrong and contradict our principles of directness and honesty. There are some minor exceptions, like noise reduction and subtle distraction removal in image editing, but never the false creation of new things. During R&D, we occasionally use AI as a starting point to guide us towards new concepts and point us to further sources. That is about the extent of it, and we hope to inspire other businesses to reduce their AI dependencies as well.

Materials and Production

We are sourcing our grade A baltic birch plywood for speaker and furniture production from ZEG Zentraleinkauf Holz + Kunststoff eG, who are operating under FSC certification no. DNVSE-PEFC-COC-349, set to be renewed in July 2027. Their local branch is making regular shipments to our workshop using an optimized supply chain to avoid needlessly far and frequent routes.

To finish our wooden parts, we are relying on low-VOC natural hard wax oil. It penetrates and lightly seals the wood, protecting it from external influences. Compared to other treatments that would need stripping and reapplying upon damage, hard wax oil usually allows affected areas to just be locally sanded and re-oiled, aiding with repairability and product lifespan. We also just prefer the organic appearance these finishes retain.

For colored parts, we are using durable water-based paints that are free from solvents and regulated for home and child safety under EN 71-3. This includes paints for custom orders, which are mixed on demand for each unit produced and fulfill the same regulations and guidelines. Once hardened, the paint is weatherproof and heat resistant up to 80 degrees Celsius, as claimed by the manufacturer.

Some of our more technical parts are made using additive manufacturing. 3D printing at our scale is generally more sustainable than subtractive manufacturing or injection molding, which in turn would require complex tooling. We are working with PLA during R&D and occasionally in production for less critical parts. PLA is based on renewable crops and therefore biodegradable under certain conditions. PETG is reserved for final structural and acoustic components. Although it is petroleum-based, it comes with some benefits like higher durability and thus lower microplastic generation, better thermal stability and altogether longer component life. Only rarely do we use carbon fiber infused filaments: While they offer excellent structural properties, their production, assembly, and recycling tends to be more problematic than with regular PETG.

Typical speaker drivers are electric motors relying on permanent magnets to function, which are commonly either made from ferrite or neodymium. The latter is a lot more potent and therefore preferred in size or weight optimized speakers like PA subwoofers. Despite their benefits, we tend to avoid neodymium drivers in serial runs due to the magnets’ problematic production: Large-scale open pit mining (with dubious working conditions), groundwater and air pollution through toxic ponds and radioactive waste from ore refinement, and a considerable energy cost. By carefully selecting our high quality ferrite drivers, we can offer the same performance – heavier on the scale, yes, but lighter on the environment and your conscience.

In short, we strive for sustainability with long-term product ownership through a mix of durability and repairability, as well as localized production methods that are as environmentally friendly as we can reasonably get them. Since this is an ongoing responsibility, we sometimes experiment with new methods and are always open to suggestions. This also means that despite regular review, some of the practices mentioned above may have been superseded by the time of reading this.