Rocking roll-up headphones

Wristwatch-inspired headphones designed to stand the test of time

The founders of Luzli, a headphone firm based in Basel, Switzerland, that takes its design cues from the Swiss watch industry, set out with a simple promise. “We wanted to make a design classic,” says co-founder Andrew James Lee. Six years of research and development were rewarded when its inaugural product, the Roller MK01 headphones, won a 2018 Red Dot Design Award, the international product design prize that has been awarded to Porsche, Apple and Ferrari.

With its distinctive machined metal aesthetic, Luzli worked with makers of link bracelets for luxury watches: its handmade headphones roll up into a pocketable ball. Lee and co-founder Dina Guth spent years developing products for high-end audio and visual brands before wanting to specialise further. “This is a different category, it’s not consumer electronics, it’s not quite sculpture or art,” says Lee. “It’s somewhere in-between.”

Luzli’s Roller MK02 headphones are slightly larger in size, with bigger (40mm) drivers in the leather ear cushions. With 11 links containing 16 separate springs, machined from aircraft grade aluminium, Lee and Guth laugh that they have made something indestructible, that comes with a lifetime guarantee — finally, a pair of headphones you won’t have to replace. Though it’s not necessarily the best business model.

“People want authentic things,” says Guth. “The customer of the future will have much more transparency. If you have something that brings you joy, that you can still use after 30 years, that’s true value.”

○