In June, Fritz Hansen built a listening bar at 3daysofdesign in Copenhagen, called it Sound Club, and set a Technics turntable on its own Bauhaus-era tables under a Kaiser Idell lamp. Both objects left the installation in the same color. The turntable went on sale this month in the US. (The lamp did not.)
The SL-40CBT arrived at CEDIA in fall 2025 at $899.99 as Technics’ way into the market far below the SL-1000R, the reference-class deck it launched at $20,000 in 2018. It uses the coreless direct-drive motor the company has refined since it introduced direct drive in 1970, a switchable phono preamp so it plugs straight into powered speakers, and Bluetooth, so vinyl can go to wireless headphones. The plinth is MDF. The standard finishes are light grey, charcoal and terracotta, the same three as the company’s SC-CX700 speakers.
The Fritz Hansen edition changes the finish to the Danish company’s deep burgundy, adds a Fritz Hansen plaque to the plinth and a branded platter mat, and stops there. Technics says it works and sounds like the standard model. Three hundred will be made, sold through Technics and selected Fritz Hansen stores, including in the US, at $1,199 on Technics’ US site.
The lamp is the Kaiser Idell Luxus 6631-T, Christian Dell’s 1930s desk lamp, designed after he ran the metal workshop at the Bauhaus and made by Fritz Hansen today. Two hundred burgundy lamps are being made for Asia and Europe only at £819; the standard lamp is $1,200 in the US. The two are not sold as a pair, though they were designed to sit together.
Furniture companies keep finding hi-fi. Symbol Audio and USM built a listening room around 1974 this summer.
Who it is for: a Fritz Hansen customer who wants the deck to match the sideboard, and a collector who counts to 300.
