Post date: Jan 10, 2013 8:20:18 PM
A Swedish company sells the ultimate gadget for music lovers - a coffin with a sound system.
PAUSE - Rock stars and other music lovers now have the opportunity to buy a coffin with a state of the art sound system built in, so that their friends can choose music for them after their death.
The coffin - the CataCoffin - is the brain-child of Fredrik Hjelmquist who is the CEO of hi-fi store Pause in Stockholm. Pause specialises in customised music solutions and he and his team came up with the idea of a coffin as a good way to market their products."This is a good thing because it's also slightly on the edge. It makes one react because this thing with death and coffins it's a bit forbidden, especially here in Sweden," he said.
Hjelmquist is not new to stunts involving music.
A few years ago, he became, what he calls, the world's first human jukebox when he played music from his stomach via a mini battery-powered audio system put in a plastic capsule he swallowed. The music could be heard by using a stethoscope connected to an amplifier.
It did not turn out to be a commercial success and Hjelmquist described the sound as very bad.
The coffin comes with the CataCombo Sound System that boasts a custom-built amplifier and is accompanied by a pair of 2-way speakers, tweeters with external cooling, as well as a subwoofer specially tuned to the coffin's acoustic space.
The CataCoffin is connected to the CataTomb tombstone, which has an upgradeable music server with a 4G wireless connection.
The playlist can be managed online with the CataPlay application connected to the music service Spotify.
It was released last month and Hjelmquist said the interest in the coffin has been great - both from people in the public as well as funeral parlours around the world.
"We've had an unbelievable amount of inquiries, not so much in Sweden, but many from the United States and Canada. Also from Taiwan," he said, adding that the reactions over all have been very positive.
"Nobody who has been in the store has actually reacted in a negative way. It's all been very positive".
The CataCoffin comes with the hefty price tag of 199,000 Swedish Krona (around 23,000 Euros).
Hjelmquist said that although they had not sold a coffin yet, they were currently looking into how they could fulfil a potential customer's request to have a screen installed inside the coffin.
"We haven't sold any yet, but there is one who wants an inbuilt screen to be able to watch the last season of "Breaking Bad". I don't laugh, because that's for real. I'm sure we'll sell that one and then I also hope a rock star will buy one," Hjelmquist said.
And who would be the perfect customer?
"Ozzy Osbourne should buy one I think or Keith Richards. Somebody ought to do it because this is really rock 'n' roll I think... but at the same time beautiful," he said.
The first ever CataCoffin that was built is on display in the store in central Stockholm and belongs to Hjelmquist himself.
He wants to be buried in it and said a belief in a life after death was not a prerequisite.
"We don't know, right? But then people believe in different ways in different parts of the world. In Sweden perhaps we don't believe it but in many parts of the world people believe in a different way."