Premiere Design

In my never-ending quest for the best performing, most beautiful, and/or most expensive A/V gear, I recently happened upon the Signature Titan speaker from Moon Audio. Said to be the first in a series of "ultra-limited-edition functional-acoustic artworks," only three pairs will ever be made.

Standing six feet tall and weighing almost 1.5 tons, the Signature Titan is said to employ technology derived from advanced fighter-plane design, nuclear reactor-containment construction, and atomic-submarine radar jamming to eliminate vibration and interference. The 4-way design includes a 1-inch ring-radiator tweeter, a 6.5-inch midrange driver, a 10-inch upper-bass driver, and a 15-inch woofer, resulting in a specified frequency response from 15Hz to 90kHz (±2dB) and a sensitivity of 96dB/w/m. Each speaker even includes an automatic-calibration system so it can tune itself to the room.

You might think that each pair would cost the same amount, but you'd be wrong. The first pair to be made, oddly carrying a serial number of 003, sports a price tag of $500,000, while the second pair, numbered 002, is a cool $1,000,000, and the last pair to be made—you guessed it, serial number 001—is an even-more-astounding $2 million. Why the increasing cost and decreasing serial numbers? According to Moon, as with art, the lower the serial number in a limited edition, the higher the value. And lest you think this is silly, number 001 has already been sold.