Muse

You turn it with your hand, you hear the tuning, and you land. The dial is machined with real detents, so the position is something you feel rather than something you read.

There is a volume encoder beside it and a talkback button, and nothing else on the object. No screen, anywhere. No app to change a station.

Warm and unhurried, tuned for a room rather than a demonstration.

A 3.5″ driver with a passive radiator, reaching down to 51 Hz. It is voiced for a kitchen with a tap running and a pan on, which is a harder room than a listening room and a more honest one.

Someone who cooks. Someone who wants the radio on from seven in the morning until the kitchen closes. Someone who has quietly resented every smart speaker they have owned — not for what it does, but for the way it listens, and the way it needs an app to change a station.

It lives on the counter beside the kettle, on the windowsill above the sink, or in a workshop getting sawdust on it. It is a working object and it should look better for being used.