By David Ponce
So for some reason the Internet is in love with Victorian-era steam-powered science-fiction. We call it Steampunk and endless instruments have been made in the style. Some clearly still love it, others, like me, don’t. Depending on which side you fall, the above iPhone “Victrola” amplifier from Etsy seller Will Rockwell (will he really? lulz anyone?…. no?… ok…) may make you smile or cringe. It’s entirely passive but the fact that it’s essentially a brass instrument does mean that it imparts a particular tone to your sound. Better yet, a little handle lets you open a vent that changes this tone at will. It’s of course really hard to speak of these without hearing, so take a gander at the below video to see what we mean.
The opening for your phone is lined in leather so no worries about scratches. And the horn comes from an actual trumpet, so the horn section in your songs will sound particularly interesting.
This is all fine and dandy until you realize that his creation is $500. That’s almost the price of the phone itself, so we imagine that you have to really like steampunk for this to make any sort of sense.
[ Product Page ] VIA [ Walyou ]
Fun fact: actual Victor Victrolas were gramophones built into cabinets, with the horn inside the cabinet – the concept was introduced to distance gramophones from the “machine shop” or metal-Steampunk appearance that this brass device conveys