Ikea, which has never been afraid to dive into new product categories, has announced plans to launch a turntable as part of its new Obegränsad collection this fall. The turntable was designed in collaboration with Swedish House Mafia house music supergroup and has a thick design in line with many of the other consumer electronics products that Ikea has produced. At the same time, the Swedish retailer has also announced an armchair and a desk as part of the collection.
Technically, this is not the first record player that Ikea has announced. In 2018 he announced a turntable made in collaboration with Teenage Engineering which he hoped to launch next year. But according to a Teenage Engineering support page, the player never made it to the final collection.
Its design and controls are designed to be simple. Image: Ikea
Ikea engineer Carmen Stoicescu alludes to this previous attempt in an interview about the new turntable on Ikea’s site. “When the question came to me, I just said,‘ We actually tried to make a turntable before, so maybe we could use the same provider? ’” He says. The writing contains a couple of clues about the player’s functionality, such as the fact that it has a built-in preamplifier, is powered by USB, and includes a replaceable cartridge and needle. In a press release, Ikea also points out that the player will work with its Eneby Bluetooth speaker, but since it doesn’t actually support Bluetooth, it will only work with a wired connection. Otherwise, technical details are scarce. It is not clear if the turntable has built-in speakers or if it is limited to the cable output.
We asked these questions at Ikea along with questions about how much the device is expected to cost. It will be available this autumn together with more than 20 other products that make up the Obegränsad collection.