Best-known designer Michael Anastassiades designs Beosound Edge speaker with aluminium frame

Minimalist designer Michael Anastassiades has recently designed Bang & Olufsen's circular Beosound Edge, which is both speaker and volume knob in one. Designed for the first time by the best known designer for minimal lightings design and unveiled last week at Berlin electronics fair IFA, the speaker can be rolled to adjust the volume. The rest of its subtle touch controls are built into the aluminium frame and only light up when a person approaches them.

The speaker is designed in such a way that it can either be kept on the floor as a centrepiece or mounted perpendicular to the wall, serving as an object to divide spaces.

Next to the aluminium body, the speaker on both sides has a matt black fabric cover that looks as dark as a void.

"It looks quite surreal as an object, because of the sudden depth change," said Anastassiades. "A gap between the two materials would have allowed a tolerance to exist."

"Here, there is no tolerance, and the in-between space does not exist anymore, which is amazing."

The other settings are controlled via a subtle touch interface, which is lasered directly into the aluminium and only illuminates when a person is near.

British-Cypriot Anastassiades said, to reach the final design for Beosound Edge, his team pushed themselves to remove "layers upon layers until what remained was a visibly pure and simple object."

Bang & Olufsen is also introducing a new technology with the Beosound Edge, which it calls the Active Bass Port. This means it uses a closed-box speaker design at lower volumes for accurate sound reproduction and opens up as the volume is raised to bring out more bass.