A speaker built for rockstar dressing rooms

While they may not look the part, Grain Audio's new Passive Bookshelf System is built to party hard. Their prototypes were originally built to blast tunes for artists like Bob Dylan, The Roots, and Elvis Costello in their dressing rooms backstage at New York's Capitol Theater and Terminal 5. Now, the acoustic greatness raved about by such marquee names is up for grabs by the plebes.

Handmade with walnut panels on top and bottom, they give the low tones provided by the 100-watt speaker and 5.25-inch woofer a more natural sound.

And the whole shebang comes packed in a handsome body that — in accordance with their mission to "get rid of all the BS" that's applied to consumer electronics these days — blends in with your decor just as well as you'd want to if you'd scored a backstage pass.

Joe McGauley is a senior editor for Supercompressor where he heads up Home coverage and red hair-having.