Styled like a vintage speaker/radio, the Trenbader Artlink has a twist to its otherwise retro design… it essentially sports a blank canvas for you to draw artworks on, effectively customizing the speaker to suit your sensibilities!
The Artlink is a pretty wonderful example of emotional design done right. Just like you get attached to IKEA products because you put your own effort and sweat into building them, the Trenbader Artlink is the kind of audio device you fall in love with because you put a bit of yourself into it by making art on its speaker fabric! The speaker sports a design that’s highly reminiscent of the Marshall and Fender-style amps, complete with a cuboidal wooden outer cabinet, chrome knobs, and even a shiny retro-style beveled logo on the bottom right corner. The rest of the speaker, or at least the front of it, is an empty artboard that’s made to be customized by you. The fabric on the front is absorbent and you can use any kind of sketch pen or marker on it (as long as it isn’t oil-based) to paint abstract artworks on it, turning the wireless speaker into a bespoke art piece… a real-life NFT, if you will.
Designer: Trenbader
The Trenbader Artlink is a beautiful vintage-style wireless Bluetooth speaker that comes with a built-in radio too. On the inside, the Artlink sports a full-range transducer along with a high-quality passive subwoofer, all packaged in a wooden cabinet that provides rich, distortion-free audio with crisp highs and deep lows. Two knurled knobs on the top let you switch between modes (Bluetooth, Aux, AM, FM, Mic, and Off) and control the volume, while a third dial located on the left lets you set the frequency on the AM/FM radio. The speaker comes with Bluetooth 4.0 that allows for connections as far as 33 feet, and if you’re in the mood to go wired, there’s an Aux input too.
The Trenbader Artlink’s highlight, however, is its customizable front. The speaker fabric sits on a removable faceplate that can be customized and even swapped to change the speaker’s aesthetic! Each speaker ships with an extra faceplate, giving you two canvases to make your artworks on, along with detailed instructions to show you how to customize your speaker’s canvas using a variety of painting techniques from marker-coloring to brushing, sponging, and more!
Designed to be portable yet still powerful enough to pack a punch, the Artlink comes with over 12-hours of battery life on a full charge. It charges via MicroUSB (there’s a cable inside the box), and each Trenbader Artlink also comes with its own faceplate removal tool, letting you swap out the faceplate and effectively change the entire vibe of the speaker whenever you feel like it!
