T.H.E. Show Newport 2012

I sat in the Hi-Fi Company’s Hi-Fi Chair ($1500) and, while I immediately felt ridiculous, I also kinda sorta liked it. A lot.

The comfy reclining chair is designed and assembled in the US, features Italian leather, and has an iPod dock, two mini-monitors, a sub, and “shaker” control. You know how, when you watch movies at home, you can hear all the explosions and stuff just fine, but you can never hear any of the words? It’s really frustrating: You raise the volume higher and higher, and the explosions and stuff get louder and louder, but you still can’t hear the words. Finally, you just lower the volume and activate closed captioning. The Hi-Fi Chair solves that problem.

We watched a bit of The Avengers—awesome movie, by the way—and the action never got in the way of the story. There were a bunch of funny lines that I had missed when I saw this in the theater! Plus: The Hi-Fi Chair’s shaker gave me a nice massage. The chair even made Scarlett Johansson hotter, which I didn’t realize was possible.

Does the Hi-Fi Chair perpetuate an image of the sad sack audiophile, alone in his cave with his music? Yeah, it probably does. But the Hi-Fi Company is considering a loveseat. Somebody call Scarlett.