Nocs Monolith speaker looks like something from 2001: A Bass Odyssey
Made in Sweden (but you won't find one in Ikea)
Whether it reminds you of Stanley Kubrick’s classic sci-fi film or the name of a dodgy rave you went to in an abandoned warehouse 25 years ago, the Nocs Monolith wireless speaker looks like it could have come from either.
Weighing 12kg and measuring just over half a metre tall and 38cm across, it’s not quite as imposing as the transformative alien monuments in the movie, and wouldn’t get a whole warehouse raving all on its own, but it’s certainly got enough oomph to start a party. A Class-D amplifier provides 150 watts of tune-pushing power, but you can group as many as 16 of them together if your Wi-Fi (and your wallet) can cope with it.
To play music through a Monolith you just have to get a message to the all-powerful extraterrestrial civilisation of old-skool ravers that controls the development of the human race, but if that fails you can always use Wi-Fi or Bluetooth 5.0 instead. It works with Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect, so you can easily play tunes straight from the apps as long as your phone is on the same Wi-Fi network, but AirPlay 2 support is in the works too. Just don’t play Also sprach Zarathustra through it or you might find yourself confronting a giant baby in outer space.
Each one is made from blackened birch plywood sourced locally in Nocs’ native Sweden, with two 6in vented woofers and three 3.5in full-range drivers, plus feet to angle it slightly upwards, so if you want to place it on the floor it won’t just play music to your shins. Nocs makes each one in its homeland, too, and they’re designed to be fully repairable, so if one of the drivers packs up it can be easily replaced.
Nocs will start shipping the £1290 speakers at the end of January and you can unearth one of your own from nocsdesign.com.
More like this: This re-issued watch is a lopsided piece of Alien memorabilia
Tom Wiggins
Contributor 
