This audio system combines vinyl, tape, and CDs with a sprinkle of Dieter Rams

FastCompany: The Retro Ambient Audio System, from Trettitre, is a device designed to feed every generation’s sense of FOMO. The setup combines a record player, a CD player, and a cassette deck—plus a magnetic base for your phone—that snap onto a modular metal rack mounted to your wall, where they spin and play music. [Photo: Trettitre] After a Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $2.2 million (and a summer of shipping delays), the company is now selling the complete package on its own website for $529.

It’s a poor man’s version of the famous $9,930 (adjusted for inflation) Wandanlage , the classic wall-mounted hi-fi system that Dieter Rams designed in 1965. The $529 price covers the three players and the magnetic wall rack, but not speakers. [Photo: Trettitre] Trettitre’s design director, Yong Cao, tells me the team members were born across three decades, from the ’70s to the ’90s, and each of them still has a soft spot for the format they first listened to as kids.

Back in October 2025, Jeff Lyu, a cofounder, suggested putting all of those formats back into the living room, “so that our kids could feel that tangible connection to music too,” Cao says. That’s why the players stay separate. “Vinyl, CD and cassette each stand for a different era. Each format sounds different, and the way people interact with each one carries different emotions. So I placed them at different points along the rack, which works as a timeline,” Cao explains. [Photo: Trettitre] Rams’ fans Trettitre, known for its cone-shaped Bluetooth speakers , designed its audio setup to look like wall art.

Instead of stashing a player in the corner and hoping people would eventually forget about it, the team designed the player to remain in sight and set the mood of the room whenever a record starts spinning. A Wandanlage system on the wall of the Dieter Rams museum. [Photo: With Associates/ Flickr ] Hi-fi as wall display art is not a new idea. Dieter Rams, the famed industrial designer, spent decades shaping products for Braun, the German electrical and electronic products company, under his motto “ weniger, aber besser ” (less, but better).

In 1959, Rams combined a pocket transistor radio with a portable record player to create the Braun TP 1. Later, in 1965, he designed his Wandanlage, as well as other wall-mounted audio systems. That device combined an amplifier, FM radio, reel-to-reel tape recorder, turnable, and speakers on a wall-mounted rack. Bang & Olufsen also had hi-fi equipment that could be mounted on walls as “art.” Trettitre’s hardware follows that minimalist lineage with brushed metal plates, flat surfaces, and simple buttons.

Its irregular layout, the mix of geometric shapes created by the different modules, and its turntable’s glowing ambient light, however, push it well out Rams’s purist aesthetic. Cao admits the debt: “Bauhaus and Dieter Rams have had a deep influence on me, and you can see it in this system: simple and useful. Behind minimal design there is usually maximal thinking.” The star of the Retro Ambient Audio System is its LP3 turntable. A frosted panel behind the platter lights up the whole unit while a record spins. The LP3 charges wirelessly on the system’s T-shaped rack, like a phone on a pad.

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The article discusses a unique product that merges nostalgic elements with modern technology, providing actionable insights for brand strategists on emotional engagement.