Polish fitness-equipment brand Pent moves into audio with shapely speakers

If Google can offer healthcare, Disney can provide cruises, and Shimano can sell fishing reels, maybe it’s not such a strange leap for Pent –Poland-based maker of ultra-luxury fitness products, from dumbbells to rowers – to start making speakers. With the launch of Pent Audio comes three new lines offering different sculptural forms, made on demand and in-house with electronic components sourced from a variety of high-end producers.

Marcin Rączek, Pent’s founder, concedes that there was much discussion internally about this unexpected sidestep – ‘about no longer being a specialist fitness brand in a specialist fitness sector’. The new speakers include the circular Gulia, cylindrical Chiara and sculptural Aurora and are priced between £3,524 and £6,522. Rączek argues that the range aims to compete less with high-end audio brands, and is more of an extension to the fitness market.

The speakers will only be available through the same distribution network of furnishing showrooms and architects as Pent’s fitness equipment. Pent Audio expects hotel gyms, boutique gyms and yachts to form a large part of its market.

‘Wellness is not just about exercise but also atmosphere, about harmonising a space, and sound is an important part of that,’ Rączek argues. ‘We still care about the sound quality, but audio companies have been relatively closed [worlds] that don’t look beyond the [dedicated] audio customer. This is more about a product appealing to the craft and design sought by the luxury customer.’

The speakers – made of solid woods, leathers, steel and, says Rączek, free of plastic parts, in wireless and wired options – are fully customisable to suit a customer’s interior using the brand’s interactive 3D configurator. And, indeed, Pent’s next move will be the launch in 2026 of home theatre systems and associated comfort-first, connected sofas and armchairs.

‘Again, we don’t see Pent as going up against other major furniture manufacturers – B&B Italia, Minotti and so on – but to be part of the same sector while offering something much more specialised,’ says Rączek. ‘So Pent will be fitness, audio and something more in the future.’

But this blurring of fitness and entertainment – predicated on Pent’s idea of fitness equipment being attractive enough not to be hidden away – has limits, Rączek suggests, not least because tech can quickly date and his vision remains to build products that last, which is why many of the brand’s fitness products (the likes of its treadmill, for instance) are non-electrical.

‘Our competitors [in the fitness space] are all about AI right now, but for us, that could only ever be something that was added to our equipment rather than essential to it,’ Rączek says. ‘I think sometimes people just want to train. They want to be alone, not watch their training as they do it. We don’t want to be too modern.’

PentAudio.com, @Pent_Audio