The Sound Of Speed
High-end speaker brand iXoost uses its connection with Modena to create iPhone docks out of supercars’ exhaust Manifolds. The result is products that could melt the heart of anyone who loves engines.
The high end of the iPhone and iPod dock market has been saturated for years. All of the big players—from Bose to Bang & Olufsen—have jumped on the bandwagon of offering top-rated audio systems for users who simply want the convenience of being able to plug their devices into a set of high-quality speakers. For audiophiles with an Apple Music subscription, then, there’s plenty of choice.
This doesn’t mean, however, that all innovation and creativity has completely been sucked out of the market. You need only look to iXoost, an Italy-based maker of high-end audio products, for confirmation of that. Developed from an idea by Matteo Panini, and designed by Pecorari, the brand offers the world’s first audio systems for iPhones and iPods that have been 100% made in Modena, the famous Italian city dubbed “the capital of engines”. The location of the company is an important one—it’s home to the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Pagani and Maserati, and that’s precisely why iXoost has set up shop there.
The brand’s speaker docks are created in collaboration with Modenese workshops. The result is products that could melt the heart of anyone who loves engines and the sounds they can make. The body of the audio systems are, in fact, genuine exhaust manifolds from supercars sporting eight, ten or twelve-cylinder engines.
Given this, it’s difficult to see how the idea could have originated anywhere apart from in the motoring capital of Italy. iXoost uses the connection to come up with its products, drawing on famous quotes from famed automakers for inspiration. The brand points to figures such as Enzo Ferrari, who once said that “the sound of a 12-cylinder engine must be listened to as if it were a symphony.”
But iXoost also notes that the music is just as important as the engineering, and so it seeks to bridge the gap between music and mechanics. It referencs a quote from great orchestral conductor Herbert Von Kara- jan, who said that “the sound of a 12-cylin- der Ferrari is like a melody which no conduc- tor would ever manage to reproduce.”
With all of that in mind, iXoost aims to create products that breathe life into these Modenese objects, which are beautiful in their own right. However, the products that result from the iXoost treatment are even better.