Teenage Engineering is getting out of the synth business - including the product that made it famous.
Founder and CEO Jesper Kouthoofd told Highsnobiety that the company plans to stop making synthesizers, a category that includes the OP-1, OP-XY, EP-133, and TP-7. Kouthoofd says the move is part of a reorganization he announced last fall. Teenage Engineering is also a design studio, with past collaborations including Ikea, Nothing, and Playdate. Those outside projects appear separate from the decision - it's the company's own hardware line that's ending.
The OP-1 is the product that put Teenage Engineering on the map among musicians and gear enthusiasts. Walking away from it suggests the company sees its future in design work for other brands rather than the instruments that built its name. That's an odd pivot for a company whose own catalog - OP-1, OP-XY, EP-133, TP-7 - is almost entirely music and audio gear.
A design firm abandoning the one product line that made it famous raises more questions than it answers.