The workshop
Forty hours of your own world
How VOLT/AUDIO makes the Halo Over-Ear, one piece at a time, and why it takes longer than it has to.
Words by Lena Kraus · Photos by Jon Ash
The Halo Over-Ear, at home.
Halo Over-Ear is built for the long flight, the late train and the Sunday afternoon on the sofa. Soft leather cushions settle around your ears instead of pressing on them, and the headband barely registers after the first minute.
The workshop sits at the end of a gravel road, in a building that used to be a dairy. There is no sign on the door. Inside, it smells of wood oil and coffee, and the radio plays quietly while six people do one thing at a time, carefully.
Slow by design
Every piece is made in small batches. Materials are chosen by hand and left to rest before they are worked; parts are fitted, checked and fitted again. It is not the fastest way to make anything, and that is exactly the point.
We could make it faster. We just don’t want to.
VOLT/AUDIO, founder
Look closely and you see the decisions: an edge rounded just enough to feel soft in the hand, a joint you can only find with your fingertips, a finish that will look better in ten years than it does today.
Built to stay
The sound is calm and wide, never shouty: bass you feel rather than hear, voices placed right in front of you. One charge lasts a full working week, and folding them flat takes a single move.
When a piece leaves the workshop it carries a small card, signed by the person who finished it. It is a promise, really: that it was made to be used every day, and to be repaired rather than replaced.
