The discontinuation of Gungnir also marks the end for the "wrap-around" case design. The OG Schiit Style, if you will, that we had since the very first Asgard.
Yes, it was a pain to manufacture, and an even bigger pain to assemble.
But it looked oooh so magnificent!
Especially in its 16" variant that Gungnir and Mjolnir 1 and 2 came in. So understated and perfectly proportioned. In silver and when stacked, the upper bevel's specular gradient and the lower bevel's darker ambient gradient complimented each other to create the most pleasing of shadow gaps.
The newer case design with its larger diameter upper bevel and the hard corner at the bottom looks perfectly nice when you arrange your gear horizontally next to one another. The sharp edge floating above the surface of your table or shelf looks much better than that beveled edge ever did.
But when stacked, the bigger upper bevel and the hard lower edge just clash. In those instances especially, the old "double bevel" was simply in a class of its own.
I'm not complaining, mind you. The new design is so much easier to manufacture and to assemble, it does look more modern, and I have a feeling that it might resonate more with most people's design sensibilities. I really do like it a lot, myself!
But the good, old "double bevel" will forever occupy a special corner in my heart.
And so you might consider this post here a little eulogy of sorts to a piece of minimalist industrial design that I always really liked, and that I would not hesitate to list alongside such iconic masterpieces as the Lamy 2000, the Barcelona Chair, the Braun T3, or the Porsche 901's silhouette.
No, neither am I kidding, nor am I brown-nosing. I really do think that the 16" double-bevel chassis has earned its place among those icons.
And I, for one, will miss it a lot.
A resounding "Good riddance!" to the Gungnir's three feet, though. There's a rather sizable gash in the surface of my desk that serves as a reminder of a time before this-here idiot had realized that Gungnir
didn't come with such modern conveniences as one foot in each corner. Ugh…
Edit:
Yes. I forgot about the existence of Valhalla, which is now the last active product with the classic wrap-around design.
Oops…
But in my defense: The 9" double-bevel is just not the same!