The world now has a speaker-cum-coffee-table

The world now has a speaker-cum-coffee-table

As crowd-funding efforts go, Hong Kong-based startup CoolGeek has played a blinder. Just 48 hours after its Kickstarter page for a speaker-cum-coffee-table went live, it is fully funded. Does the world really need a coffee table with 360-degree sound? Not at all. But it wants it anyway - and who are we to argue?

The Soundesk comprises a 11mm glass table held up by a obelisk-shaped base that contains five speakers promising omni-directional audio.

There are two full-range drivers (driven by 15 watts of amplification) back-to-back near the top, alongside two silk dome tweeters powered by a 5-watt amp. A 40-watt subwoofer holds things down at the bottom. We're thankful to see built-in vibration damping on the spec sheet - after all, wine could be at stake here!

In addition to USB and 3.5mm aux ports for hooking up a source, the Soundesk also boasts Bluetooth, with a built-in lithium battery promising a whopping three months of standby from a single charge.

For an early-bird pledge of $399 (about £308) you can secure yourself one Soundesk, while $788 gets you two of them. Pledge now and you can expect to receive your table (or tables) in August. 

Speakers in tables, eh? They’ll be putting kettles inside alarm clocks next… oh, wait.

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Becky has been a full-time staff writer at What Hi-Fi? since March 2019. Prior to gaining her MA in Journalism in 2018, she freelanced as an arts critic alongside a 20-year career as a professional dancer and aerialist – any love of dance is of course tethered to a love of music. Becky has previously contributed to Stuff, FourFourTwo, This is Cabaret and The Stage. When not writing, she dances, spins in the air, drinks coffee, watches football or surfs in Cornwall with her other half – a football writer whose talent knows no bounds.