The Coffee Table Concept that Plays Music

Design concept integrating a CD player into a coffee table suspiciously looks like a Sony-branded bench

Straight from the creative juices of Sharifah Nasser comes the Sound Lounge, a design concept embedding a CD player into a minimalist table. Low enough to look like a bench, the Sound Lounge relies on a glass slide cover instead of a power button.

Turning the Sound Lounge on is a simple matter of sliding the glass to the left. To play a CD, you plop it into the center receptacle, then slide the cover back. Move the cover to the left again to load a new CD, or to the right to turn the machine off. When the Sound Lounge activates, the sides slide out slightly to expose the speakers. In other words, this table shouldn't double as a bench!

Sounds good, but wouldn't an integrated disc changer be more practical? The sliding cover and speakers are awesome and all, but perhaps allowing 50+ optical discs (CDs, DVDs, and even BDs) would create a more functional home appliance, controlled by a slide-out touch screen or a remote with a small display.

It's reasonable to assume that such a table could stream video output to a nearby HDTV via DLNA, while WiFi could allow an improved Sound Lounge to automatically download music and movie info. The Sound Lounge concept as it is right now is aesthetically pleasing. Unfortunately it's crippled by one-dimensional functionality that no longer has a place in today's do-everything world.